


Spiritus Mundi

by TrinityVixen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, SHEITH - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, allurance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2019-10-08 16:10:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 62,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17389550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrinityVixen/pseuds/TrinityVixen
Summary: The Paladins move on with time, the years that pass robbing the pain of its immediacy for some. But for others, pain lingers, combines with new challenges to keep wounds open. And at the center of it, one of their own struggles to keep it together. When is it time to recognize that bad things happen to good people and when is it time to suspect the improbable, nay impossible? After all they have been through, is the mature thing accepting and handling the mundane or expecting and coping with the miraculous?(A post-season 8 (including lamentable epilogue)-compliant fic, with a mind to fix it.)





	1. The ceremony of innocence is drowned

On the second-ever Allura Day, Shiro finds his old teammates in as fine a form as he ever hoped for them, even if he had hoped to have them closer. Coran is overseeing the final touches on a new castle on Altea that would make his grandfather proud. Hunk has been recognized for his genius at a new discipline; Culinary Diplomacy is being taught at the Galaxy Garrison. Pidge’s contributions to wormhole technology are only the start of her one-woman technological revolution. Though Shiro knows he mourns, Lance flourishes on Allura Day because he has an excuse to brag about her to anyone who will listen. For someone who likes talking as much as Lance does, an audience is only ever a good thing.

 

And Keith. There is an air of settled-ness to Keith. Not domestication, because it would be a crime to tame Keith’s wild passion for any reason. More, Shiro has the sense, in Keith’s unhurried, lax posture and unselfconscious, easy smile, that he is _happy_. He deserves it. He barely blushes when Shiro tells him so, that’s how Shiro knows it’s real.

 

They take a picture with Allura. Technically, they take many, or, rather, have many taken of them. Allura Day is a Voltron Coalition holiday, and as a long as the former Paladins of Voltron exist, people want some part of them—and her. Lance talks himself hoarse that day so that everyone can have their share. Allura, his love for her, is something that grows as he spreads it.

 

There are plans to meet every year, now that they’ve done it twice and that’s excuse enough to start a new tradition. It becomes settled sacrament between them--Shiro, Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Coran--by the second bottle of nunvill opened that evening. The third takes out most of the human contingent, leaving only Keith, Coran and Lance still standing. Shiro will not have as bad a hangover as Hunk or Pidge, but he can only just remain upright as the last three grow increasingly, sloppily competitive.

 

“I wouldn’t have expected you could keep up,” Keith challenges the others, holding up the jug and drinking.

 

“Hah!” Coran shouts, snatching the bottle from him, taking his share, and passing it on, straight-armed to Lance.  “Shows what you know! Alteans drink nunvill only if water isn’t an option!”

 

“I think you mean it the other way around,” Lance croaks, no longer wincing as he swallows. He moves to pass the nunvill back to Keith, but a manic Coran seizes it.

 

“Of course, I do! Drinks nunvill only--only if--” Coran can’t find his way out of the sentence, takes another swig of nunvill, then jumps to his feet, nearly beaning Shiro with the nunvill bottle in the process. He raises a finger, opens his mouth, then falls sideways. Shiro’s reflexes are too dulled to catch him, as are Keith’s. Lance manages to slow Coran’s descent, but there will be an ugly lump on his forehead come morning.

 

“Think you should give up now,” Lance says, “You missed an easy catch there, mullet.”

 

Keith blinks bleary eyes at the snoring Coran on the floor, but he holds up the bottle of nunvill by the neck between two fingers. “I got what I needed.”

 

Drunk as Shiro might be, he finds energy to issue a sleepy warning. “Quit while you’re ahead, Lance. I’ve seen him drink Kolivan under the table. No shame in being number two.”

 

Lance throws up his hands. “That’s just great. You couldn’t have told me that before we started?” He sticks out his tongue and gags. “Nunvill is awful and I wouldn’t have started this if I knew Keith was going to _cheat_.”

 

“‘S not cheating, ‘s my superior tolerance,” Keith crows, taking a long pull of nunvill in victory. He lifts the bottle from his lips, appears to reconsider, then drinks again, pumping one fist in the air. Lance leans forward and tips the bottle further. Impressively, instead of choking, Keith shotguns it, not spilling a drop.

 

“Sucker,” he sniggers at Lance, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

 

Lance’s returning smile shows all his teeth. “Says the man who just swilled half a tank of nunvill.” He pretends to spit in distaste.

 

Keith waves at him, pushes back from the table in his chair. Which promptly tips over backward with him in it. Shiro makes the same uncoordinated attempt to help him as he did with Coran, but it’s Lance, again, who catches one of Keith’s flailing arms. The chair, not Keith’s skull, smacks to the floor.

 

“Whassat!?”

 

Shiro jumps a foot and spins in his chair, grasping the back to keep from falling off at the last second. Hunk, who had been prostrate on the floor, has sat up in one swift motion, eyes closed, drool caked on his chin. Pidge, who had passed out on top of him, is dumped unceremoniously to the floor, face-first. She doesn’t make a sound or move from this position.

 

“Nothing, Hunk, just rescuing the princess,” Lance assures him.

 

Whether Hunk processes this or not, he nods and falls back down into stuporous, stertorous sleep inside of minutes. By the time Shiro turns around, Lance has stepped around Coran to help re-seat Keith. Who follows Hunk’s lead and slumps forward on the table, dead asleep thanks to adrenaline shoving the last bit of nunvill into his bloodstream.

 

“And then there were two,” Lance says, sliding back into his own chair.

 

Shiro holds his hands up in surrender, annoyed that the Altean one drifts out of alignment as he does so. “I fold. I folded ages ago.” He tries to rub his already aching head, uses his right hand; thanks to drink, he ends up smacking himself the forehead. He slouches backward in his chair, groans as the room spins. “I _should_ have folded ages ago.”

 

“You want some water?” Lance is already on his feet, headed towards the sink. He is suspiciously agile, juggling three glass tumblers full of water. He sets one down for Shiro, keeps one for himself, and, Shiro is surprised to note, he places the last one in front of Keith, muttering, “Would serve you right to get a hangover.”

 

When he slides back into his chair with laconic ease, Shiro calls him out.

 

“You sly sonuva--you’re not drunk at all.”

 

Lance reclines in his chair, sips his water, winks at Shiro over the rim. “The only way to win is not to play.”

 

“How?” He had seen Lance drink all night. And he’d seemed affected, too. A groggy, ill-tempered part of his brain wants to say Lance is not that good an actor, which Shiro knows from mortifying up-close experiences that he never personally had and yet nonetheless remembers.

 

Instead, he watches, mouth dropping open as Lance reveals his magic trick. He fetches the empty nunvill bottle from Keith’s unresisting hand. He takes a sip of water, then turns his head to the bottle, tipping it back to his mouth. When he leans forward, the bottle has liquid in it that it didn’t before.

 

Lance beams at him. “Tolerance-schmolerance: you all have been drinking my backwash all night.”

 

Shiro moans, disgusted and, despite himself, kind of impressed. He wishes he had thought of it.

 

“And you called Keith a cheater?”

 

Lance puts a flat palm on his belly, the back of his other hand on his back and takes a bow, still seated.

 

Shiro gulps his water, desperately hoping he forgets this whole exchange, if not the entire night. Lance takes his empty glass, refills it. Shiro has not been drunk more than a handful of times in his life. It had never been a great idea to add the debilitating effects of alcohol to a genetic muscular degenerative disorder. But he was young and dumb once. He’d worked up the nerve to kiss Adam for the first time thanks to the liquid courage on offer at an end-of-finals party. He stopped drinking much as he got older, though, when the recovery time grew longer, and his condition started to flare on the regular.

 

But his experiences aren’t the same as others’. Lance is young and, yes, heart-sick but otherwise healthy. Shiro feels the tug of concern at Lance not drinking. He juts his chin at the nunvill bottle. “Not feeling it today?”

 

Lance shrugs. “I didn’t want you guys not to have fun.” He pulls disgusted frown. “Not that I _want_ to drink nunvill.”

 

He fidgets with his empty water glass, twisting it back and forth in his lap. Sober, Shiro would have the patience to wait him out long enough for the silence to prompt him to say more. Drunk, Shiro lacks the words to babble and change the subject, which has the same effect.

 

Lance sighs. “I’d be a depressing drunk today anyway.”

 

Shiro straightens as best he’s able, reaches to clamp his hand on Lance’s shoulder. The Altean arm, struggling to follow his inebriated commands, lands on Lance’s wrist, but it’s close enough.

 

“I won’t insult you and ask if you’re okay.”

 

Lance nods, not looking at him. “I really missed her today.” His breath hitches on his next inhale. “I miss her _every_ day.” He isn’t drunk, but his mind and his gaze are a million miles away. “Today wasn’t that bad, all things considered. When I tell people about her, it’s like she’s a little more present. But tomorrow--”

 

Shiro knows how that sentence ends. Tomorrow, people won’t want to hear about Allura, won’t ask, and Lance will lose her all over again into the vacuum of their silence. They went ahead and made her death into a holiday, so this cycle will repeat every year. Shiro wants to tell him that every loss is like that, holiday or no, but that’s neither helpful nor fair. He doesn’t trust himself not reveal some jealousy that at least Allura is recognized on her own when his former lover is just a name among many on a wall. He doesn’t want to sound bitter by telling him to get used to sympathy overflowing only to a point, to recognize that these moments--funerals, memorials, holidays--exist so everyone else gets a reprieve from caring for a while. A tide of support cannot be sustained, so it slows to a trickle and grief drowns you on dry land.

 

Lance is silent a long moment, but when he looks up at Shiro, he has tears welling at the corner of his eyes, the first ones Shiro has seen on him all day. He jabs the meat of his palms into them to wipe them away.

 

“Don’t,” Shiro says. “It’s okay to cry. I can leave, if you don’t want me to see.”

 

Lance shakes his head. “No, no, it’s not that, it’s just--” he chokes off a sob, still rubbing at his eyes. “It’s just the meds. For some reason, it itches when I cry.”

 

Shiro’s brain takes too long to process that, so his mouth is already moving around the wrong words and he cuts himself off halfway through. “Crying just means you’re in touch with--meds?”

 

Lance swipes at his running nose. His eyes do look redder, but whether that’s from tears, rubbing or allergic reaction, Shiro could not say.

 

“Yeah,” Lance says. “You guys--” he jerks his head at Keith, at Shiro--“ _quiznak_ , I don’t know how you do it. You all went through way worse than me. But I can’t do it by myself.”

 

Shiro squeezes the hand on Lance’s wrist. “Grief is not a competition. And you don’t have to do it alone. If your brain can’t produce its own chemicals, store-bought is just fine. Besides,” he bites his lip, but alcohol overrides inhibition and he continues, “I _don’t_ do it by myself. I see someone. Twice a week, actually.”

 

Lance’s eyebrows jump on his forehead. ‘“You do?”

 

His surprise is so comically exaggerated, Shiro’s apprehension at confessing this vanishes. “Lance, we have been through _so much_. There’s no way I could do this on my own. It would be a sign that I really was crazy if I tried.”

 

Even drunk, he does _not_ say that the clone tried. He remembers what his other self did, trying to carry on by shutting down the trauma, ignoring it. Keith had been stubborn enough to insist that he would help, and that offer had been enough to keep his other self afloat for a while. In retrospect, Haggar hadn’t needed to push too hard to break the clone’s mind; Shiro’s memories did that well enough on their own.

 

He clears his throat, redirecting his own morose drunk thoughts.

 

“Anyway, the Garrison wouldn’t let me pilot the Atlas without regular psych-evals even if I hadn’t been kidnapped, tortured, and killed by aliens. And that’s just the stuff the therapist knows how to deal with.”

 

To be fair, they didn’t make a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that covered things like quintessence and alternate realities in the first place, let alone the types of experiences with them that Shiro had had. Dr. Bhaduri was doing well, considering.

 

His words soften Lance’s expression into something like amusement with only a frisson of curiosity and pity. “Does it help?”

 

Shiro nods, a little too emphatically. “Absolutely.” He pauses and then another secret comes flying out of his mouth. “I also get to see somebody else a lot of the time when I go that I don’t mind.”

 

Lance gapes at him. “Shiro, are you _seeing_ somebody? Like, _seeing-_ seeing?”

 

Shiro knows his grin is dopey. “Not officially. I haven’t asked. It’d be weird.”

 

Lance leans forward, grabs Shiro by his shoulders, and shakes him a little. “Shiro,” he intones, “you are living in the body of your own clone. How weird can it be compared to that?”

 

Shiro--goddamn alcohol--snorts and then giggles. Which makes him snort again. Lance, caught off guard by this, cracks up. They both laugh until they’re gasping.

 

“But _seeeeriously_ ,” Lance pants, “you should ask him out. I don’t know him, but he would absolutely say yes.”

 

Shiro wipes away a tear from his eye, laughter dying back. “That’s the problem. I’m technically his superior officer.”

 

“And an interstellar war hero,” Lance adds, unhelpfully.

 

“I just had to go and get made a Captain before I was thirty. I’m now un-fucking-datable without it being a coercive relationship or filling out a lot of paperwork.

 

Lance eyeballs him hard. “One,” Lance holds up his index finger, “you fucking love paperwork. And two,” he says, holding up a second finger, “you are stupidly good-looking. It’s not coercion if someone wants to date you: _it’s good eyesight_.”

 

“Which I feel like I’m already losing because of all the paperwork,” Shiro groans, leaning forward to rest his head on his crossed forearms. He lays his cheek down so his head is turned away from Lance and towards Keith.

 

Keith is unconscious. His upper lip is smashed against the table, pulled back in a snarl that shows his abnormally fierce canines. His too-long hair has come out of its binding and there is a nunvill-colored clump in it by his temple. He is also drooling. He is still, in Lance’s phrasing, _stupidly good-looking_. Shiro shies away from that thought.

 

Helpfully, Keith chooses that moment to burp a scent so foul that Shiro readjusts to lay his head the other way to escape the odor.

 

“Then get glasses,” Lance is saying. “And ask that guy, _any guy_ , on a date. Don’t make me play the ‘I waited too long’ card on you, Shiro.”

 

“Are you volunteering?” Shiro teases

 

“Heck no,” Lance says, “I’m a mess. Date someone not a mess.”

 

Shiro musters his most mentor-ly stare and serious frown. “You’re not a mess, Lance. It takes courage to ask for help.”

 

Lance looks close to tears again. “Thanks, buddy.” He scans Shiro up and down, or so Shiro assumes since his eyes keep drifting closed. “You’re going to regret it if you fall asleep here.”

 

“Mm-hrm.”

 

“Shiro, get up and go to bed.”

 

“Mmph.”

 

“Shiro, if you don’t go to bed right now, I’ll report you to your senior officer for being drunk and disorderly.”

 

“’m off duty--holiday.”

 

“Fine. At least close your mouth. I’m going to be swimming in drool otherwise.”

 

“Yessir,” Shiro mumbles sleepily. “Good talk, thanks.”

 

Lance’s reply, after a long pause, is more earnest. “Yeah. It was.”

 

Shiro is vaguely aware of Lance standing, patting him once on the back, and leaving.

 

*****

 

“We should really never do this again sometime,” Pidge says. She is wearing shades instead of her glasses, even though they are inside.

 

“Can we not do it quieter?” Hunk grumbles. He has the hood of his shirt pulled over his face, drawstring pulled so only his nose and mouth are visible.

 

Shiro would love to hide the bags under his eyes the same way, but he is due for a few official meetings in his dual capacity as Galaxy Garrison Captain and Voltron Coalition founding member. As such, he is in his uniform, albeit slightly rumpled, his undershirt already sweat-stained.

 

Keith, damn him, suffers from nothing as much competitive instinct. His hair is a touch unrulier than its usual, the only outward sign of any regrets about the night-before nunvill. But he is eyeballing Lance with visible envy since Lance is the only one less affected than he is. Lance’s button-down shirt and loose pants look more respectable than Shiro’s uniform. Only Shiro knows why, and Shiro will keep that secret, along with all the others he remembers from last night. They’re not his to share.

 

They are waiting on their respective transports, the last time Shiro thinks he will see any of them for what suddenly feels like far too long.

 

“We definitely need do this again,” Shiro mutters. “Just with more coffee and less nunvill.”

 

“I enjoyed it!” Lance cannot resist elbowing Keith and rubbing it in.

 

“You got some fancy face tattoos and a taste for the worst alcohol in the galaxy.” Keith rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “Congratulations, you’re ready to join a prison gang.”

 

“Aw, thanks, buddy,” Lance coos, throwing an arm around Keith’s shoulder and then, to everyone’s surprise, gilding the lily by planting a wet kiss on Keith’s cheek. “There you go, maybe some of my charm will rub off on you.”

 

Keith goggles at him. “You kissed me.”

 

“Love you, too, dear,” Lance croons, releasing him.

 

Shiro hides a smile behind his knuckles. Keith is pole-axed, and the look is good on him. _Stupidly_ good. Very little agitates Keith any more, which is a good thing, but he does need some practice with affection outside of his very insular group. Shiro hopes that his tolerance of Lance’s nonsense--itself a heartwarming thing, under the circumstances--is a move in the right direction.

 

“Morning!” A chipper voice interrupts whatever might have come next as the transport official for the Earth-bound members of their party--Pidge, Hunk--arrives. The regrettably effervescent Altean woman with fair skin and purple markings busies herself with the bags, oblivious to the hostile reception her sunny disposition engenders. Pidge and Hunk fall in for group hugs.

 

“I’m going to miss you guys,” Hunk says, squeezing hard enough around the circle that he drives air out of Shiro’s lungs. “You have to come to the Coalition meeting on Daibazaal next month. I’m gonna cook you all something amazing.”

 

“You always do,” Shiro laughs, releasing him.

 

“Come by the lab when you get back, Shiro,” Pidge says. “Matt would love to see you.”

 

“I will,” he promises.

 

Pidge and Hunk follow behind their chatty guide in the direction of their ride. And then they are three.

 

“Where are you headed?” Keith asks Lance.

 

Lance raises and drops his shoulders. “I’m staying on Altea for a while. There are some samples I want to bring back to the farms on Earth, and I promised Colleen Holt some seeds for the Ark.”

 

Shiro knows the Ark, the seed bank in Norway, is being expanded to preserve alien plant species now, too. He didn’t know Colleen had drafted Lance to help her. With no Voltron, none of the former Paladins except Shiro are enlisted at the Garrison, though Pidge is usually nearby because of her family. The rest followed their hearts’ callings. Shiro is pleased that Lance will be nearby, too, and says so.

 

“Yeah,” Lance laughs. “They’ll never really get rid of me.”

 

“Like a tick,” Keith says.

 

Lance blows him a kiss. He giggles. If not for his words last night, Lance might be flirting. Shiro resolves to feel not very much about that.

 

Keith says, “How far are you headed?” The motive behind his question presents itself when Kosmo teleports into existence behind Keith.

 

Shiro does a double-take. Keith has grown even more in the last year, mostly in muscle mass, but Kosmo has doubled in size, easily. Shiro had caught a holovid of Keith’s speech at Feyiv, when he, Kolivan and Krolia had argued, successfully, to turn the remnants of the Galran Empire into what was now the fledgling Galra Republic. Kosmo had been a head taller and a few feet longer, mostly tail, then. Like Keith, he hasn’t grown up so much as out. The space wolf is still lithe as he insinuates himself into Keith’s personal space, but there is more bulk to his shoulders and hips now.

 

He was asking a question, Shiro realizes after getting lost in his own astonishment. A question for Lance. Kosmo was part of that question: he was offering Lance a lift.

 

Lance waves him off, punching his shoulder, lightly. “I’m going to walk. I need the exercise.”

 

Hardly, in Shiro’s opinion. Lance is toned and tan from all the work he’s done outside in the past two years. He might be thinner, even, than he had been as a Paladin, and he had been a rake then. He waves to them both, incongruously winks at Shiro and rolls his eyes back in Keith’s direction. Shiro doesn’t hide his confusion and then Lance is rolling his eyes at him.

 

“It’s been real.” He calls over his shoulder as he walks away, “For a change!”

 

“Shiro?” Keith offers, a hand on Kosmo’s majestic ruff.

 

Shiro debates accepting. He can admit, grumpily due to the hangover, he has missed Keith this past year. Not being in touch for so long grates on him, makes him feel guilty and lonely even though Keith hasn’t yet left. An excuse to spend more time with him wouldn’t be unwelcome. _Any guy_ , Lance’s words come back to him and he realizes, now that Lance has departed, what he was trying to hint at.

 

Shiro shakes his head to derail yet another impermissible train of thought. “The Castle transport is on its way already. I think Coran woke up early to go back and arrange it.”

 

Keith’s smirk is a bit of the boy Shiro knew inside the man before him. “I thought he was over all this pomp and circumstance.”

 

They share a dry chuckle about old times. Coran, when they first met him on the Castle of Lions, had been more of a stickler for protocol. It got old fast; fortunately, he’d mellowed a bit. He’d needed to, or else he might have committed ritual suicide for failing to stop--well.

 

Keith traces some line of his thinking. “He’ll be okay. They both will.”

 

Shiro nods. “How about you? We didn’t really get a chance to talk much, one-on-one.”

 

Keith fixes him with a look Shiro can’t place. That such a thing is possible only worries Shiro more. The look is fleeting, vanishing into lax insouciance. “Not much new to tell you. The Blades are still busy with triage work on every system I can name. I work with a woman who has tried to kill me several times. And she and her girlfriend are _loud_. Somehow, I am the boss who gets to deal with that daily. It makes me miss being a Paladin more than anything else.”

 

Shiro wants to but can’t laugh. Zethrid has come around to being an ally, but some part of him will always hold her at a distance because she specifically tried to kill Keith to get at Shiro. It shows a kind of insight into what Shiro holds dear that he is not, on this or any morning (but especially this one), ready to investigate.

 

He shoots Keith a pained smile. “I am working with teenagers at the Garrison again. I feel your pain.”

 

Keith does not smile. “The Garrison? You’re not flying the Atlas?”

 

Shiro holds out his flat palm, tips it back and forth. “Some. The Garrison won’t sign over their flagship to the Voltron Coalition like I’ve suggested they do. It would be a show of good faith. They don’t think they need to make one since most of the Voltron Paladins were from Earth. But they’ve grounded it more to show they don’t intend to use it against the Coalition either.”

 

He shrugs. “It’s all politics.”

 

Keith frowns, leaning back against Kosmo. “You didn’t used to be a political animal, Shiro. You’re a pilot.”

 

“I still am. I’m the only one who can activate the transformation sequence, so until they find someone who can do that, I’m the only captain they can have.” His words come out defensive. He blames the hangover. “Besides, who are you calling a political animal? Aren’t you the one who called himself a Galran citizen on live broadcast? I nearly fell out of my chair.”

 

Nothing makes Keith look more like the moody teenager he was quite like him rolling his eyes and huffing, both of which he does.

 

“Kolivan needed help. He said a Paladin who helped defeat two emperors declaring kinship would increase the chances the rest of the Galra voted for the Republic. It worked.”

 

“Things change,” Shiro says, not disagreeing on any point. “That’s a good thing.”

 

“They do—it is,” Keith pouts, more sixteen in that gesture than Shiro has seen him yet, “but some things shouldn’t.”

 

This, Shiro can agree with. He offers his hand, which Keith takes and Shiro tugs him hard into a hug. He can admit that he’s missed this, too. It doesn’t have to be weird, despite the distance that’s arisen between them.

 

“You’re right,” he murmurs in Keith’s ear, not releasing him. “We should talk more.”

 

Keith huffs. “I’m not a talker.”

 

“Then I’ll talk,” Shiro says, finally stepping back and pointing a finger at Keith. “Or I’ll talk to Krolia and get the intel that way.”

 

Keith growls, “You leave my mom out of this.” He returns the finger gun salute and then flicks a real one at the same time he buries his other hand in Kosmo’s fur. He is gone so quickly and completely, Shiro must convince himself he was even there.

 

He opens a communication relay using the software on the Altean arm. He pings Keith’s address. _Show off._

 

His transport to the castle, arranged for and piloted by an awfully green Coran, arrives before Keith’s answer.

 

_Keep up, old timer_.

 

His mood improves enough to survive the rest of his day.


	2. The best lack all conviction

Seven months after Allura Day, Keith gets the comm from Shiro that makes it official: Shiro is getting married.

They had kept their promise to keep in better touch, though Shiro had missed Hunk’s catered feast on Daibazaal. The Galra, whatever they feel about the Republic and the new direction their race is taking after ten thousand years of endless conquest, love Hunk. He cares about their culture even as, with his little hints and nudges, he’s changing it, ever-so-slightly; on the food front, he’s improved it by leaps and bounds. Keith had sent Shiro several pictures of him and the other Paladins— _wish you were here_ —and heard, then, for the first time about the new man in Shiro’s life when said man responded to the pictures instead of Shiro.

Shiro had been on a covert mission with the Atlas at the time, a rare enough occurrence, he knew. It was still weird that he had entrusted his personal communications to someone Keith didn’t know. That someone had been kind enough to let Keith know that Shiro would not receive the message right away so he didn’t misunderstand the lack of response. That said more than anything about the level of trust Shiro had in him; when it came time to talk to a Paladin, especially Keith, Shiro made the effort personal. That meant this man was personal, too. When he had resurfaced from his mission, Shiro had been keen to gush about Curtis. Five months of this later, and Keith still had not learned the man’s last name.

Well, now, he guesses, it will be Shirogane. He cannot imagine anyone lucky enough to be with Shiro would not want to wear his name as a badge of honor. He taps out a polite reply when he gets the message, summoning his instinctual drive to see Shiro happy, and says he’ll be delighted to attend as Shiro’s best man. Shiro’s elation and increasingly disarrayed responses negate the need for him to say much more.

Shiro is too stupid in love to recognize that Keith has never uttered the word “delighted” in his life, and one more piece of their former intimacy passes into history. Then there are plans, all rushed because Shiro doesn’t want to wait any longer—“I’m not getting any younger,” he says, as if he is turning fifty instead of thirty. Keith is too busy making to make merry on Shiro’s behalf to really engage with the feeling in his chest that fits, distressingly, into a box shaped like heartbreak. He refocuses, finds balance in doing things for Shiro, a habit of old when he found himself at a loss for direction in life. Shiro deserves all the peace and love in the universe, and Keith will give it to him, in whatever capacity he can. 

So, he rearranges his schedule to free himself up on the appointed date, makes sure he has a tuxedo with red accents—he insists, even when Shiro haltingly mentions he might wear black, too. He fetches ingredients for Hunk, who refuses to let anyone else cater the wedding of the century. He researches means to mask wormhole signatures with Pidge—mostly, he provides her the caffeine, sugar, and encouragement while she does the science—so guests will be able to arrive without notice of reporters until the affair is over. He borrows shuttles from the Blades to transport Lance and all the flowers he is using to decorate the makeshift wedding chapel on a sandy marsh in Bangladesh. This is for Shiro’s fiancé, who grew up nearby. Shiro has no family other than the Paladins, so that concession makes sense on its face. 

Keith is relieved, however, when Lance is the one to voice discontent on their flight back to Earth. 

“Shiro is getting married in a _bog_ ,” Lance grouses, collapsing to sit sideways across the co-pilot seat. “A _bog_ , Keith.” 

“His wedding, buddy,” Keith says, no heat in his voice to indicate that he is opposed to this sentiment. 

“I could have set him up on an actual beach. It’s an insult to my people to marry someone off on some _sand_ and call it a _beach_.”

Keith places a hand on Lance’s foot, schools his face into seriousness. “I hate to break it to you, but Shiro didn’t pick the location to spite you.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “A _bog_.”

“A marsh. Wetlands—very important, complex ecosystem. It might be symbolic.”

“You’re a desert rat. What do _you_ know about marshes?”

Keith shrugs. “I had to do a lot of research for the wedding to make sure we could get the entire party into Fatrar Char Park.”

Lance places a hand on his chest, feigning shock. “You? Did _homework_?”

Keith punches him on his shin, but Lance laughs through it for a long minute. He trails off into comfortable silence. Keith feels better for defending Shiro’s decisions; he always has, even when he disagrees with them. Kerberos had been like that. He’d questioned Shiro’s need for the mission, like everybody else, but once Shiro was decided, Keith had fought beyond Shiro’s supposed death to defend his right to it.

Lance inhales sharply, drawing Keith’s sideways gaze. He frowns, opens his mouth, but hesitates. Such reluctance to poke at Keith is unusual for Lance and a bit alarming.

“What?”

Lance’s frown deepens. “Are you okay?”

“Of course, I am.”

Lance snorts. “You are the worst liar.”

Unable to argue that point, Keith tries a different tack. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I dunno.” Lance leans his head back over the armrest and out of Keith’s line of sight. “Maybe because Shiro is getting married to some guy you don’t even know?”

“I know enough. I know he makes Shiro happy.”

“Horseshit,” Lance drawls.

“That’s what matters.” The defense sounds weak to Keith’s ears, and he turns enough to see Lance staring at him, flat and unconvinced. His ears heat up. “It is.”

“Can I ask—”

Lance stops. This is unlike him, this constant hesitation. With time and maturity, Lance’s solicitude of others’ feelings had grown into his best asset, but that didn’t mean his insistence on meddling had lessened any. Mostly that was a good thing, especially as he was surrounded with stubborn types that would have resisted any softer approaches. He drew Allura out with it—Keith, too, at times.

“Are you and Shiro… _were_ you and he…”

“No,” Keith says without thinking. The end of that sentence is unthinkable. With what he hopes is finality, he adds, “Never.”

“Huh,” Lance murmurs. He is still staring, but his eyes are glazed, unfocused. “I could have sworn--”

“No,” Keith repeats.

“Never?”

“Never.”

Lance is dogged. “Never because he didn’t want to? Or you didn’t want to?”

“Never because that’s not the relationship we had.” Keith folds his arms across his chest. “Why are you asking me this now?”

Lance takes another deep breath, shakes his head and meets Keith’s hard gaze with a sadder one of his own. His cheeks are pink, and he struggles to say, “Because it’s not too late to change things?”

Keith has no response to this. His jaw works furiously; he grinds his teeth to keep from snarling. “Are you suggesting,” he growls, “that I ruin Shiro’s wedding?”

Lance appears unfazed by the implications of that question. “I think—I think he’s making a mistake.” Defiantly, he adds, “I think you think that, too.”

Refusing to contemplate the possible truth of this, Keith pushes forward with a more comfortable emotion: anger. “And you have this incredible insight based on what? Who put this idea in your head?”

That shuts Lance up; he snaps his mouth closed so hard, Keith hears his teeth click. He swivels his legs around, putting his feet on the floor and trapping his arms between his knees as he blinks at the ground.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Shiro is _happy_ ,” Keith stresses, returning to his console. “We are going to be happy for him.”

“Sure,” Lance says. “Happy.”

He doesn’t speak again until they land, his silence, for once, unwelcome because it leaves Keith’s brain free to tumble over his words. He cannot afford the distraction. He is here for Shiro. There cannot be space for bitterness or jealousy over who has taken up the spot at Shiro’s side that used to be Keith’s. That’s not—that is _not_ how they ever worked together anyway. It’s new and it’s a little raw, being replaced as someone’s favorite. But that’s what a husband should be—the one who comes first. So, of course, it’s going to be awkward, but this will get easier. Keith can work on it.

They land without incident, and Keith moves to stomp off when Lance grabs his arm.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

Keith fixes him with a righteous glare. “You’re supposed to be Shiro’s friend. You should be happy for him, not trying to sabotage his wedding. Or using _me_ to do it.”

Lance looks up when Keith says this, his deep blue eyes watery, his Altean markings incongruously cheery next to his tears. He rubs at his lids while holding eye contact with Keith.

“I ‘m your friend, too, you know.”

Keith has no answer for that. He watches, mute, as Lance drags the back of his hand over his eyes, smearing tears and crusted debris from his lashes. For a moment, his own flurry of emotion stills, and Keith sees Lance as if looking at him for the first time on their journey. Lance looks dog-tired and yet fired up about this--apologetic and not at the same time.

“You deserve to be happy, Keith,” he finishes. Keith nods, choking a bit on a tender, too-large feeling high in his chest that resembles gratitude. Lance releases him. “See you down there.”

Keith makes it off the transport and to his temporary quarters before he has to stop moving because he’s hyperventilating. With effort, he takes deep breaths, calms himself by refocusing on his mission. This is Shiro’s time. He’s earned everything he is getting. It is no time for Keith to freak out about anything, least of all Lance’s clumsy attempts to—to do something ill-advised and unnecessary. It’s not the time.

He gets control, and then sets out on his duties. 

*****

The ceremony is beautiful, simple, and short, and Shiro _is_ happy, enough that Keith smiles through the whole thing; his mouth actually hurts after. Beside him, representing Shiro’s acquired family, the other Paladins, Lance included, weep and whoop when the big kiss comes. Keith grins at Shiro’s surprise when his new husband jerks him eagerly into a second kiss after the official one. Shiro’s eyes stay open a tick too long, his thick, silver eyebrows arching upward before he sinks into it.

It’s the last time Shiro or Curtis are allowed to canoodle at their own wedding, which seems unfair. Too many people want to seize one or both of them into hugs, draw them into dances, toasts, or photos. Pidge cuts a rug with Lance, who, to Keith’s astonishment, is a fantastic dancer. He dances with everyone, even Curtis, no sign of his earlier uncertainty about the proceedings.

Hunk is the only Paladin other than Keith who holds out against dancing. He is too busy attempting and failing to supervise the catering staff until Shay chases him off with an admonition that he is to enjoy himself. Instead, he stands next to Keith, nursing a fruity drink and stewing. Never a diplomat, Keith nonetheless tries to work Hunk out of his ill-humor. Given the circumstances, he didn’t expect to be the one responsible for good cheer, and Hunk the one who is ill-tempered.

Keith clinks glasses with Hunk. “You outdid yourself,” he says, biting into something green and pink on a stick.

Hunk frowns. “I think the _del regordiogh_ could have come out firmer.” From his disapproving stare, Keith assumes he means the canape he is currently holding. Keith finishes it in one gulp.

“It’s delicious,” Keith protests, his mouth full. He snags another two from a passing waiter.

This cracks Hunk’s dissatisfied mien. He deigns to accept one of the under-done whatever-he-had-called it from Keith and takes a bite. “And filling, right? I hope people save room for desert. I made green tea and red bean mochi especially for Shiro.”

“I’m sure he’ll love it,” Keith says.

Hunk isn’t listening. He is frowning again, and Keith follows the direction of his gaze to where Lance is spinning his sister, Veronica, around in a flamboyant dance that nonetheless they both make look effortless. Lance has shucked his jacket and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. Veronica’s dress has inserts that flare out when she turns her knees as she kicks her legs out to either side. They are both sweaty and grinning wildly.

Keith isn’t sure what Hunk disapproves of until he finally grunts. “I might have to give Lance extra. Do you know how offensive skinny people are to cooks?”

Keith is suddenly glad he is still wearing his jacket. He isn’t much larger than Lance, although Lance is taller, which exaggerates an overall suggestion of lankiness. To placate Hunk, he says, “You’re a fantastic chef, Hunk. It must be really rude.”

“It’s like he loses weight to spite me.” Hunk throws up his hands.

“Wouldn’t put it past him. You know Lance and his grudges.” It comes out more bitter than he intends, his recent conversations with Lance bleeding through a bit.

“I’m going to stick one end of a hose into lard and the other into his mouth until he explodes. He wouldn’t be so skinny if he were eating food goo. That almost makes me miss food goo.” Hunk shudders. “Almost.”

This gives Keith pause. Once is an accident, twice a coincidence but three times he’s mentioned Lance’s weight and that forms a trend whether Hunk realizes or not. In combination with the weird way their trip to Earth ended, it disturbs some unnamable anxiety.

Tentatively, Keith asks, “Does he seem...okay?

“Who? Lance?”

Hunk peers with renewed scrutiny at the scene before him, prepared on principle to find fault. Lance has collapsed into a chair, heaving with exertion. He downs a large glass of water as a replacement for graciously allowing Veronica to be swept into a much more intimate dance with Nadia Rizavi.

“Yeah, I mean, he’s fine. I think?”

Now Keith is worried. Hunk and Pidge knew Lance from back when; they had been a team long before any of them had been Paladins. How had they grown so far apart that Hunk wouldn’t know how Lance was doing? A nagging voice in the back of his head wants Keith’s attention, something having to do with his meddling conversation earlier. He smothers it because that is too distracting to contemplate right now.

“I hope he’s taking care of himself.”

Hunk screws up his nose to say something decisive and is derailed by a tray of food running by them that clearly does not measure up to his standards. He chases after it, Lance and Keith both forgotten. Keith stares after him long enough that by the time he turns back to find Lance, he only just catches sight of the other man’s coattails. Lance disappears around the corner in the direction of the terraced garden outside of the venue. Keith follows, dodging an invite for a dance from a pink-cheeked Pidge.

Before he leaves, he scans the crowd until he finds Shiro, who is standing next to his husband  as Coran natters at them. Shiro’s awareness of Keith is, unlike so much of their relationship of late, unerring and unaltered. He meets Keith’s eyes in about three ticks, raises an eyebrow. He slips his arm from Curtis, stepping away until Keith shakes his head. Even now, Shiro is ready to spring into action if Keith needs him. But not now. Not today. He can handle this. He nods towards the exit—nothing serious, he won’t be long. This Shiro appears to understand, and he shoots Keith a brief, reassuring smile before returning his attention to Coran.

Plenty of guests are out in the garden—single guests looking for fresh air or a place to sober up, couples chasing intimate moments away from other eyes. Lance is sitting at a marble table watching one of the latter. Keith pauses when the pair of women that are the focus of Lance’s attention separate long enough for one to bend down onto one knee. Their words don’t carry to Keith, but from their faces, he can see that the best sort of question is asked and answered to the satisfaction of both. They seize each other in a kiss.

Lance lets out a tremendous hoot of joy, waving his suit jacket like a flag, embarrassing the newly affianced ladies out of their embrace. They each blow him a kiss as they run away to celebrate. Lance turns his head to follow their retreat and stops when he catches sight of Keith. His tremendous, toothy smile dims into something tentative and cowed, but he still kicks out the chair next to him for Keith to sit.

Keith slides into it. “You okay?”

Lance laughs. “I should be asking you that.” Keith glares, his only warning before Lance holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Keith says, not distracted.

“Honestly?” Lance sighs, shrugs, and shakes his head. “Not really. I think I’m faking it pretty well, though.” His eyes are shiny in the dark.

Keith can handle honesty better than he can handle denial, but not much better. He wrings his hands and forces himself to say, “Do you want to talk about it?”

This is so outside his wheelhouse and deeply, hilariously ironic, but so has this whole evening been. First, he was the one to be in good humor where Hunk was ill-tempered, and now he is the one prodding someone else to talk-- _Lance_ , of all people.

“Talk about what?” Lance says, dejected, his cheer falling away in a hurry. “Talk about how I was gonna be married by now?”

Keith gapes at him. He isn’t sure if this is an educated conjecture, a foolhardy hope, or a foresworn promise. What is saddest is that it doesn’t matter because none of them ever came to fruition.

“You and Allura?”

Lance barks a harsh and mirthless laugh. “Nope, me and you, pal.” He leans back until his head hangs over the back of his chair. “Maybe we did. In some universe better than this one.”

Keith squirms in his seat. It’s pointless, not to mention cruel, to say that he doesn’t desire that sort of relationship with just about anyone, let alone Lance. A voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Shiro’s praises him for his restraint. Back when he and Lance weren’t friendly enough for this sort of conversation, he might have said it. In this here and now, he has nothing to add.

Lance is looking him over as though he knows what Keith is thinking. “Would it be so bad? I’m pretty cute with these.” He points the blue chevrons high on his broad cheekbones.

Keith bites down on a smirk. It’s not even untrue, but he refuses to confirm as much or stroke Lance’s ego. It feels fake, and even for the purposes of reassurance, fake is not allowed right now.

“You really think the better universe is one where you and I are a couple?”

Lance shrugs again. “Better than this one where I’m alone and—”

He swallows something too personal to be voiced with difficulty. When he speaks again, he opts for the weak joke. “And you’re my only hope of romance. At least in another universe, it would be by choice.”

“You’re not alone,” Keith says, willing it to be so. “I’m here if you need.”

Lance’s eyebrows narrow. “What I need.” He closes his eyes, his expression of false levity fading into true agony. “I need something I can’t have.”

Keith doesn’t have to ask what. Or, rather, who. “Have you tried…” But he doesn’t know how to hint at moving on. It would be hypocritical in the extreme for him to do so, with his history. Here again, Lance surprises him by understanding his meaning.

Lance whispers, “No. I can’t right now. I’m not—” He stops again, closing off some confession that keeps trying to escape.

Keith leans forward, and Lance opens his eyes to track the movement. “I know it’s hard,” Keith says, his own poisonous familiarity with loneliness rising near to the surface. “I’ve been there. You have friends and family who can help, if you let us.”

A ghost of a smile traipses across Lance’s thin lips. “I need more than that.” He nods at Keith. “You do, too.”

Keith scowls, ready to shut this down, when Lance interrupts his indignant huffing. “You don’t want to hear it. You won’t admit it, but you’re fucking miserable, too.”

“I am _not_.”

“Maybe not every day, like me,” Lance allows, as if this is a magnanimous concession. “Maybe not when you’re helping people and feeling needed.” He shakes a finger at Keith. “But if you want to sit there and lie and say you’re fine with all this right now, I’m going to leave.”

He stands up at that—so fast, Keith lurches away as if struck. He dashes forward again when Lance stumbles, indignance forgotten as he slips Lance’s arm over his shoulder to support him.

“I think maybe you had too much to drink,” he says softly, hoping Lance understands this is an offer to drop the subject. Another few exchanges like this, it will be an order, not a request.

Lance struggles briefly to escape Keith’s hold then gives up. “I have not.”

He does not slur his words or sway again, but Keith doesn’t release him. Instead, he walks them, three-legged, back towards the venue, intent on dragging him to his room unobserved. Whatever argument they need to have over Lance’s recent choices of subject matter, Keith won’t embarrass Lance now because he is a maudlin drunk.

His plans are scotched when Shiro shows up.

“There you—” he starts, words trailing off as his relieved smile dissolves into a worried moue. Keith’s cheeks burn hot as Shiro scans him and Lance over. What must this look like?

“Everything okay?”

Lance flicks a lazy salute to Shiro with the hand not braced over Keith’s shoulder. “Aye aye, Captain.”

 _Drunk_ , Keith mouths to Shiro.

Shiro nods, one edge of his lips curling up in a mischievous and indulgent grin. There is never any judgment with Shiro. He understands and withholds comment, as he slips his left arm under Lance’s other shoulder. Then all three of them are staggering back towards the bungalows where the guests are staying.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” Shiro says. As with everything Shiro says, he means it.

“Shiro,” Lance throws him a dark look, “I am having a _dreadful_ time.”

Shiro’s laugh is as genuine as the rest of him. “I could tell. Where did you learn to dance like that?”

“I am _Cuban,”_ he says, offended.

“That explains how come only Veronica can keep up with you.”

“Nadia is doing okay. Of course, they’ve been together a while, so she knows my sister well enough to follow her moves.”

Keith snorts. Lance’s eyes pop open wider. “You didn’t know that?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Why would I know who Veronica is dating?”

What is odd is that Shiro appears surprised, too. He works with Veronica and Nadia Rizavi on the Atlas. Keith doesn’t know either of them well, but neither strike him as the demure type. If they’re anything like the lesbians _Keith_ works with, their drama should overflow even a ship as large as the Atlas. Even when it is in dry dock, as it all too often is these days. And Shiro might have been twitter-pated the last few months, but surely he would know.

“They usually end up together?” Lance says, as if that explains anything. “It must be a fixed feature of every universe, I swear.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow at Keith. _Every universe_?

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Keith grunts as Lance finally gives up and leans all his weight on him and Shiro.

“It’s like you two,” Lance burbles on, unheeding of the exchange. “You two always end up involved.”

Shiro’s laugh is less raucous this time. “Oh no, not you, too.”

This is not the reaction Keith expected, and Shiro’s blush is equally foreign in this time and place. Abashed, Shiro stutters, “Adam maybe, sort of, used to think we were fooling around, too.”

 _Quiznak_ , he had been _a kid_ when Shiro was dating Adam. Had people been thinking—since _then_? He could have happily gone to his grave without knowing that. He wants to kick Lance.

“It’s not like that!” Keith hisses, too vehement by half.

“Doesn’t have to be,” Lance muses, “just is.”

“One more word, you’re sleeping off your hangover in the bog,” Keith threatens, not able to meet Shiro’s eyes but feeling his smile as Keith shares some of his mortification.

The wedding party have the nearest bungalows and they’re in sight now, a small mercy come a little too late for Keith’s liking.

“I’ve got him, Shiro,” he says. “Go back to your party.”

Shiro lingers even as he allows Keith to pull Lance away from his hold. “You sure?”

Keith nods. “I’ve got this.”

“Keith.”

Shiro’s tone brooks no further evasion. Keith turns and meets his gaze. Shiro’s expression is equal parts concern, determination, and admiration. And he is so beautifully, incandescentally handsome--backlit by soft wedding lighting, a light flush high on his cheeks--Keith almost can’t breathe. He had plucked at his bow tie as they walked Lance away from the pavilion and loosened a button at his throat. So, Keith can watch as a bead of sweat slides from his temple, down along the tendons in his neck and disappears into the vee on his dress shirt.

Shiro’s smile devastates him. “Hurry back. It’s not a party without you there.”

Shiro has jogged back most of the way to the pavilion when Lance groans, “You two. You find every way to avoid saying ‘I love you.’”

He stands on his own power then, lifting easily off of Keith’s shoulder and trudging the rest of the way to his hut while Keith stands rooted in place.

“Hey!” He shouts, too many beats after the fact to hide how distracting Shiro was. He rounds on Lance who has his key out to let himself in to his bungalow. “You sneak. Were you faking that whole time?”

Lance grimaces, aggrieved. “I told you I wasn’t drunk. I _was_ trying to be a good wingman. You’re just hopeless.”

This is finally too much for Keith. He pushes Lance into his own door. The thatch gives way easily—none of the rooms Keith has seen would hold up against a stiff wind--and Keith drags the taller man in after him using his tie. He kicks the door shut and shoves Lance backwards until he sits down on the bed.

“For the last time,” Keith snarls. “Shiro and I are not—”

“I get it,” Lance says, holding up his hands. “I get what you’re saying. It just doesn’t make sense to me, that’s all. I’m not doing it to piss you off.”

“Lance—”

“I’m dropping it.”

He rises from the bed, no hint of his earlier incoordination, and retreats to the bathroom without closing the door. Keith peers after him. There are a couple of bottles on the vanity, but not of the sort he expected. They’re small, round, orange plastic bottles. There are, Keith scans again, more than a couple.

Lance catches his eye in the mirror and, wearing an obstinate expression, opens two of the bottles and takes a capsule or tablet from each with a swig of water.

Keith is the last person to want to invade anyone’s privacy, but Lance isn’t hiding anything. So, he feels comfortable--is concerned enough to ask, “Are you sick?”

He remembers too well watching Shiro hide signs of disease and debilitation, and he re-evaluates Lance, looking for more of the same. The skin under his eyes is puffy, the smudgy bruise-purple of it hard to appreciate with the Altean markings and his dark skin. And Hunk was right: he is too skinny. His trousers are slim and yet his legs disappear in them. His blue vest gaps away from his torso, and as he draws it over his head, Keith can see the impression of his ribs through his dress shirt.

“Obviously,” Lance says, aiming at nonchalance and overcompensating to the point of sounding irate. He brings the water glass with him as he sits on the bed again. “It’s nothing physical, if that makes it better.”

It’s a confession and a challenge, and Keith rises to it. “It doesn’t.”

“That’s life,” Lance says, waving him off. “Sorry I was being a jerk.”

“What else is new?”

Keith waits for Lance to finish his water so he can return the glass to the sink in the bathroom. It takes more willpower than it ought not to scan the bottles on the counter. Lance has revealed enough of himself. The rest is not his business, and Keith is good at minding his own. He shoves his hands into his pockets, uncertain of his next step.

Sleepily, Lance calls out from the other room, “Go back to your wedding, Keith.” A beat then, “You know what I mean.”

Keith slides out of the bathroom, heading for the door but slowly, leaving himself time to formulate a reason to stay or to not go. Which, his traitorous brain reminds him, is not the same thing.

“I’ll be fine, go on.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure that you’ll regret it if you don’t.” Lance shifts on the bed to lay his head on the pillows. He kicks off his shoes but makes no other move to undress or get under the covers, which is just pathetic enough to provoke Keith to action. He snags the throw blanket at the end of the bed and drapes it over Lance’s shoulders.

“You’re a good friend, Keith.”

“Rest,” Keith says, finding his irritation is fleeting as his friend drops off into slumber before he has even shut the door behind himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The show didn't give Curtis any flavor, so I ain't gonna neither. I said canon-compliant, and I meant it.


	3. shadows of the indignant desert birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confession is good for the soul.

The third Allura Day is a time of transition for Hunk. His team has grown, not only in size and experience, but in ambition. He is losing his sous-chefs, but he is so proud of Shay and Romelle as they expand the franchise--winning hearts and minds through stomachs--that he cannot stay sad. He brags on them, at length, to Veronica, who has joined her brother on the annual Paladin pilgrimage to Altea. Normally, he rides with Pidge, but she’s bringing her robot and the thought of being stuck in a transport with Chip makes Hunk greener than usual at the thought of space flight. He loves Pidge, but Chip gives him the heebie-jeebies.

Veronica’s inclusion on the trip is also thanks to transition. The Atlas is permanently grounded, and her crew furloughed. Shiro has opted for discharge and retirement rather than spending his days behind a desk. As a savvy PR move, the Galaxy Garrison promoted him to Admiral on his way out the door--an apology for smearing his good name and chaining him to table back in the day. He’ll have the prestige and money enough to enjoy his new married life, but Veronica, the MFE pilots, and the rest of the Atlas crew are at odds while the Garrison restructures. She says nothing about what that means, and with Shiro officially mustered out, it’s left to Pidge—the only one with an inside man at the Garrison--to feed the group the good gossip. Admiral Holt, her father, is hoping to gain support for folding the Galaxy Garrison into the Coalition entirely. No more separate, Terran-based military force, just one, united peacekeeping entity.

“That would make her so proud,” Coran says as they gather for their annual picture, his face turned up and away towards the statue of Allura in the background. Veronica takes the pictures for them, catching the candid shots before they’re ready for their unofficial-official one. She seems pleased to be busy and to have a reason not to interact with Chip while the Paladins assemble.

“Say cheese!” She says, her voice forcibly cheerful. She then takes roughly twenty snaps per second. Hunk feels his smile freezing, dropping, then reappearing as they all start to crack under the pressure to perform that is radiating from their photographer. Veronica is not a woman to be gainsaid, so she marshals them into order. It lasts all of five seconds before he, Pidge, and Lance are all sniggering again.

“Hopeless!” Veronica barks at the Paladins, who are now a puddle of laughing fools on the dais on Victory Square. She pitches the photo tool at the pile, seeming to aim it right at Lance’s forehead. Keith plucks it out of the air just in time. Despite her fierce expression—lips pursed, hands on her hips—Hunk can see her struggle not to smile. It’s directed at Lance, who manages an indulgent grin back before sticking his tongue out at her.

Hunk always edits their pictures, so Keith hands over the device without him having to ask. None of them move just yet while Hunk scans through the photos. Veronica has a good eye, and despite all the teasing she and Lance had engaged in on their trip over, she has actually managed not to take a single shot of her brother that would qualify as mortifying. This is saying something as she has caught out each of the others looking ridiculous at least twice. Even Shiro, which, given how ridiculously handsome he is, is a feat in and of itself; she caught him in mid-sneeze, his left hand near his eye at such an angle that his wedding band appears like an over-large eyebrow piercing.

“It was nice of Veronica to come,” Shiro says, laughing at the picture of Coran accidentally giving him bunny ears when he attempted to throw up a victory salute. Behind them, Hunk hears Keith explaining what a bunny even is to Coran.

“Trouble at home,” Lance says. “She and the wife.”

“Veronica’s married?” Pidge asks, nostrils flaring. “And I thought Shiro was rushing into things.”

“Hey!” Shiro pouts, mussing her hair with his Altean arm. The arm emits a short electronic buzz, which Shiro checks. “Speaking of the mister…”

He untangles himself from the group, retreating a few steps to speak on a private comm to his husband. Hunk smiles, but his heart hurts a bit. It’s only the third Allura Day, and already they’re starting to be pulled apart on the day itself. For good things! That much is a relief. Shiro is just checking in with his new man, who opted to let the Paladins have their day rather than attend in person. Lance is only bringing his sister along because Veronica is struggling. Pidge is teaching Chip about interacting with biological life forms in non-controlled environments and using her data to adjust his programming.

But it feels like things are changing, like something inevitable is waiting to move them all apart now that they don’t literally have to band together to save their own skins, other intelligent lifeforms, and reality itself. He tries not to dwell. That’s not really what’s happening. It’s just that _his_ life is changing; he’s reading too much into what is happening to the others.

Besides, the point of Allura Day is to celebrate coming together. The more the merrier. Maybe next year he’ll invite Shay…

“Altea to Hunk, come in Hunk!” Pidge raps on his forehead. “Where did you go?”

“Leave him alone,” Lance says. “He’s thinking of his lady.” He says this as he lays back, his head on his crossed arms as he stares up at Allura’s statue.

Hunk flushes redder than his sweatband. “How—what? I wasn’t—what lady?”

“What ‘what lady’?” Keith asks, rejoining the conversation. Over his shoulder, Hunk can see Coran miming having long ears and teeth and completely failing to perform an accurate charade of a rabbit.

“Hunk’s got a girlfriend,” Pidge teases.

Keith blinks at him, visibly struggling with whether to believe her. “Oh?”

“It’s not—I don’t even have--”

But Pidge is merciless. “Is it Shay? I bet it’s Shay. You always liked her.”

“Just because I wanted to rescue her and her people after they saved my life doesn’t mean—guys that was _years_ ago—”

“He babbling,” Keith says, his grin feral. “That means it’s Shay.” Pidge and he high-five.

“Of course, it’s Shay,” Lance interjects. “They’re raising, like, fifteen kids.”

Coran gasps. “Are you formally adopting Romelle? And Sal? And the others? So they can’t leave? How cut-throat of you, Number two!” He sounds almost proud.

“What?”

Hunk’s head is spinning. Keith and Pidge follow the conversation like spectators at a sports match—gaping first at Lance when he speaks, then Coran, then at Hunk himself as if this rumor was his doing in the first place. Hunk waves his hands, makes a chopping motion across his throat.

“No! No! I don’t know what they’re talking about! I don’t have any kids! Adopted or otherwise!”

Veronica has come back in a hurry as they all started shouting, arriving just as Hunk denied having kids. She glares at her brother.

“You starting rumors again?” She says. Her voice is unnaturally high, as though she strains to keep tension out of her voice

Lance is defiant. “Ask him, Vee. Ask him if he wasn’t thinking about Shay.”

If any more blood flows into Hunk’s cheeks right now, he’s going to have a nosebleed. Veronica, though, is scary intense. She bends in half at the waist to put her face into his.

“Is that true, Garrett?”

Veronica snaps through his last bit of denial with the formal address. Hunk surrenders.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ha!” Lance crows, pumping a fist in the air. “Told you! Sometimes, I get it right!”

Veronica rights herself, folds her arms across her chest, taps one blunt fingernail against her elbow. There is some private, silent communication between the McClains, and Lance fares little better than Hunk. His victory celebration comes to a short end.

Coran is no more clued in than Hunk. “So…are you not adopting Romelle?”

 

*****

 

The Nunvill Incident is explained to Veronica later that night and, lamentably, repeated in miniature. Hunk cares too much for his taste buds to subject them to such torture again. Shiro left after dinner; while Allura Day is sacrosanct, he owes his husband a honeymoon and has gone off to enjoy one on Altea. Lance isn’t drinking either, but he has declared Veronica his pinch-hitter. Veronica had been about to decline the offer when a taunt from Coran wakened her fighting spirit. Pidge abstains to play impartial referee, herself in no hurry to revisit last year’s “fun.”

So then there were three: Keith, Veronica, and Coran. Pidge is ruthless in standardizing the contest. She divides the nunvill by weight and species class, which means Veronica takes the smallest share per drink round. Keith takes only slightly less than Coran, half a Galra still nearly equivalent to a full Altean. Pidge smacks anyone who tries to pour their own drink. Or, rather, her robot does. Hunk is also glad not to be competing because he doesn’t have to be anywhere near Chip.

“It’s like something out of my nightmares,” Lance whispers loudly to him. “Human extermination in three…two…one…”

Hunk nods, shifting along the counter at his back. “No matter where you go, it’s like he’s staring at you.”

Lance shudders dramatically. “No matter what universe she’s in, Pidge always manages to make it weirder.”

“That’s not fair,” Hunk defends her. He’s impressed with Chip, just terribly averse to being in its company, especially close up.

This shuts Lance down for a while, and they watch the competition unfold about as poorly, but much more efficiently, than it had the year before. Coran is all talk until he turns blue-green and vanishes  into the commode for the rest of the evening after only an hour. Keith’s looking a bit wilted, Veronica predatory. Pidge keeps the glasses filled, supplies the commentary herself when neither of the drinkers can.

“Twenty bits says Veronica drinks the mullet under,” Lance says.

“No way. I love Keith, but she’s going to clean the floor with him.”

Lance chuckles. “She goes out with Rizavi every night. The only one who regularly outdoes them is Ina Leifsdottir. I have yet to see that crazy Saami drunk.”

Confused, Hunk asks, “I thought they were having trouble?”

Lance doesn’t answer, only pinches his nose and swears under his breath.

“Lance?”

“I’m tired,” Lance says. “I don’t know what I’m saying.” He sneers. “I wish I had drink as an excuse.”

“You could probably play the winner. You’d have a handicap. You might win.”

“I’m handicapped enough, thank you,” Lance sniffs, walking away towards his suite of rooms. “Good night all!”

Keith, Pidge, and—Hunk shudders—Chip all wave to him and utter some nonsensical noise effectively wishing him the same, and then they return to the drinking competition.

Hunk watches his back as Lance goes. He does look tired. Allura Day is always a busy one for him—so many Alteans cling to him as their last connection to Allura. His morning started early, so that explains the bowing of his shoulders, his low hanging head, his shuffling gait, his tripping and having to catch himself on the wall and staying there for a five-count.

Wait.

Something shatters behind his shoulder, and he spins around. Pidge cowers back on her bar stool, pressing herself against the wall, flinging one arm over Chip protectively. Veronica’s last shot of nunvill is staining the wall over her shoulder, sliding down towards shards of glass on the floor.

“I fold,” she grunts and tears hell out of the room after her brother.

Pidge is the first to recover. “What was that about?”

Keith, officially, woefully drunk for the first time that Hunk has ever seen, squints after her. “No idea.” He reaches for his last shot, but Pidge snatches it away just in time. She hands it to Chip and places water in front of Keith.

“Want to play?” Chip’s artificial voice calls out in the silence. He mimes drinking the alcohol in his hand.

“No,” Pidge hushes him. “Sleep mode.”

“Not sleepy,” Chip replies. Hunk has a chill up his spine. _Human extermination in three…two…one._

“Then help me clean up the mess,” Pidge hisses, vaulting off her stool and looking for a dust bin for the broken glass. “Hunk?”

He snaps to attention at the sound of his name, follows the direction of her gaze. Right. Lance. Veronica.

“I’m on it.”

He pads down the hallway towards Lance’s rooms. Coran has secured rooms at Alfor’s Castle for the Paladins on Allura Day in perpetuity. They have a whole wing—the Paladin Tower. The common area is a pentagon, and the bedroom suites branch off at each of the five points. The suites are even color-coded, and Hunk feels a bit uneasy treading down the blue hallway, like he’s trespassing and being disloyal to yellow at the same time. He picks up speed when he hears retching through the open door of Lance’s set of rooms. He busts into the bathroom, ready to assist, to hold Veronica’s hair if its needed, even though he doesn’t know her that well and Lance is likely already—

But Veronica is not voiding her stomach of nunvill’s poisonous effects. Lance is the one draped over the toilet. Hunk enters in time to see him lose the _cucurucho_ s Hunk had made especially for him. He’d had a whole _Cubano_ menu planned when he knew Lance was bringing his sister as she nursed a heartache. The food was to make her feel welcome in their Paladin-only gathering.

Hunk’s mouth opens and closes uselessly as he tries to process the scene in front of him. “But—but you weren’t drinking?” Is the best he can do.

Lance snuffles, pained, and spits a huge wad of phlegm into the toilet bowl before flushing the content of his stomach away. Veronica’s cheeks are pinked, more from being caught out, Hunk suspects, than nunvill. She moves around the enormous bathroom without hindrance, fetching water and offering it in one hand to her brother. She opens her other palm to reveal some capsules Hunk cannot identify on sight alone, taps her foot until Lance swallows them and the water both.

“Hey,” Hunk says, recovering. “Wait a tick?”

He ducks out, hurries to his own suite.

“Hey! Everything okay?” That’s Pidge. Keith is snoring with his back on the floor and his legs on the seat of his chair. Hunk wishes he had the time to savor the way the tables have turned.

“Yep, Veronica’s just sick!”

He grabs a bag from his room, waves it at Pidge and heads back down the blue hallway, already feeling for the bin he wants. He’s got it in hand before he realizes he lied to Pidge. And easily. That burns like indigestion. Or worse, food poisoning. That would explain Lance puking, maybe. Oh _quiznak_ , if he got everyone sick on his cooking, he’d never be able to show his face in the kitchen again…

“Hunk?”

He blinks at the voice. It’s Veronica, staring at him. Oh, he’s back in the bathroom already. He  shakes himself to stave off the panic from his nightmare scenario. He holds up the container in his hand and takes the water glass from Lance. He opens the spout from the bin and lets some of the green powder within it tip into the glass. He swirls it around, sniffs, nods, and hands it back. Without further prompting, Lance drinks the entire concoction down.

“Hucha-hucha,” Hunk explains. “It’s derived from Iglan root. Excellent flavor profile, good for digestion and nausea.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Lance whimpers, sinking down into the corner between the wall and the toilet beside him. “I needed that.”

“Better than chemicals,” Hunk says, sticking his nose in the air, puffed up with pride that Lance took his remedy as readily as Veronica’s.

“The _chemicals_ are necessary,” Veronica snaps, spoiling for a fight as she clenches her fists at her side.

“Vee,” Lance pleads. He closes his eyes and pinches his nose again, breathes heavily as though still nauseated. “Vee, it’s okay. I’ll be okay with Hunk.”

Veronica’s expression is no less dyspeptic than her brother’s, but she excuses herself without a word to Hunk. He cowers away from the door as she stalks out. Hunk depresses the panel to close the door behind him as he sinks down to sit, cross-legged and let out a sigh of relief.

“Your sister needs to make up with her wife if she’s going to be that scary all the time without her.”

Lance snorts, the sound wet and choked with bits of vomit that are probably still up his nose. “She’s fine.”

“Drinking Keith to death and squeezing you into a crack in a bathroom says differently.”

Lance pets the tile around him fondly. “I like my crack, it’s safe here. So cozy, too. Just enough room for me and my problems.”

That first part is true, Hunk supposes, though it shouldn’t be. Lance’s shoulders hunch over to squeeze into the space, but not nearly as much as a man over six feet tall should have to. He folds too much, is Hunk’s overall impression.

“You okay, buddy?”

“Everybody has been asking me that, lately,” Lance sniffles, coughs once and spits something thick into the toilet before flushing it again. He’s avoiding the question, so Hunk presses.

“Are you?”

“I’m okay, Hunk. I’m sorry I wasted your food.”

“I hope it _wasn’t_ the food,” he whimpers.

One side of Lance’s mouth tips up in an approximation of a smile. “It wasn’t. My stomach just can’t handle rich food so well lately.”

“I can make it blander next time,” Hunk says, quietly praying he never has to. He wraps his hands each around one of his knees, taps his feet, racks his brain for a different subject to talk about that is unrelated to vomiting or bathrooms. He hears Veronica throwing things around in the bedroom, seizes on that.

“So… _is_ Veronica going to work things out with Rizavi?”

“It’s all pretty new, but I hope so.”

Hunk’s eyes cross. “What? I thought you said they were married?”

Lance won’t meet Hunk’s eyes. “I say lots of things. You know better than to listen to me, Hunk.” His lips twitch, mouthing words before saying any. “Remember that time I thought I saw a mermaid?”

“Lance, we _did_ see mermaids.”

Lance wipes his eyes, then his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “That was real.” It’s almost a question, almost a doubt.

“It seems incredible, right?” Hunk laughs nervously. “Not only were there mermaids, you were right about there _being_ mermaids!”

As jokes go, it’s a weak one, but the reception seems especially poor. Lance curls into himself tighter, rests his chin on his knees and stares at the floor. In the silence, anxiety converts itself to giggles in Hunk’s gut. Now he’s questioning whether or not _he_ even saw mermaids. Hunk’s tongue feels heavy and useless in his mouth—he’s building a career as a diplomat, but he can’t talk his friend out of a bathroom.

“Luxia,” Lance says, at last. “That was her name.”

Relieved, Hunk nods. “The queen! Yeah! You remembered!”

Lance wags his index finger around in a circle. “Woo hoo, score one for the stupid one.”

“You’re not—”

“Hunk.” Lance finally levels his gaze on Hunk’s, his expression exacting and pitiless. “You and Pidge are certifiable geniuses. Shiro and Keith are prodigy pilots. Allura is a magical princess. Even Coran knows how to design and operate ships and castles. I am absolutely not in your league. Not any of you.”

Hunk studiously ignores the present tense used in conjunction with Allura’s name. “You’re our sharpshooter.”

“I’m a glorified florist, Hunk.”

That much Hunk can refute. “No way. Your terraforming protocol has made several asteroids inhabitable for refugees, Keith was telling me—”

“That wasn’t me.”

Hunk cuts himself off in mid-argument. Yes, it was, he was sure Keith had said—

“Keith is being nice.”

Hunk squints at him, suddenly afraid. “Can you read my mind?”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Where else would you have heard it? Keith is just trying to prove to his boyfriend that we’re getting along. He wants to present a united front. Everybody happy-happy.”

Up is down and this conversation is so far off the rails, it’s laying new tracks of its own that overlap in space and time. And Hunk thought he was lost before trying to keep track of what state of bliss, marital or non-, that Veronica and Rizavi were in? The word “boyfriend,” in relevance to Keith just entered the room. Not that he wouldn’t be happy for Keith if he had a boyfriend, but…

Hunk gives up trying to make sense of it and just asks, “Boyfriend?”

“Shiro.”

“Shiro? Like, our Shiro?”

Lance raises an eyebrow. “You know of any others? Wait, don’t answer that, that’s even more confusing. Damn clones.”

But Shiro— _their_ Shiro—that isn’t possible. Unless, well, there could be some arrangement Hunk doesn’t know about, and frankly, it’s no business of his to know, but if Lance knows, maybe it’s not a secret?

With an itch of curiosity he cannot scratch any other way, he says, “Shiro’s married? To somebody else?”

This is the exact wrong thing to say. He didn’t mean to contradict Lance, but Lance seems pissed off now. Lance presses his fists against his temples. “I know that! Usually!”

His shout summons Veronica. She spares Hunk a withering glare but crosses the room to her brother, putting the lid of the toilet down to sit on it and rub at his shoulders. She murmurs something in his ear, the cadence of her words low and repetitive. Lance responds minimally at first, but after a full dobosh, he relaxes. Enough that she is willing to leave him and disappear again into the room they’re sharing. She comes back with a bag that she rifles through and extracts a few more capsules from. She also places an auditory transmitter over his head, the sound impulse generators placed against the bone at his temples. He takes the meds dry and starts tapping along to a rhythm only he can hear, eyes squeezed shut.

“Give him a minute, please,” Veronica says, forestalling a thousand questions on Hunk’s part.

He gives them fifteen before he can muster any sort of coherent thought, much less a question.

Veronica anticipates him, though. “It’s the change in routine,” she says. Whatever Lance is listening to, he doesn’t hear her, or, at least, he doesn’t react to her words. Hunk cannot guess which it is. “Changes in routine make things worse, but he insisted on coming. I didn’t want him to go alone. I didn’t know how he’d do. I thought the wedding was risky enough. Today is so much worse.”

For the first time that evening, Hunk appreciates how fatigued Veronica is. Her rigid posture belies it, but he suspects she keeps herself upright more out of determination than alertness. Whatever he is witnessing, she has been there from the beginning. His heart twinges for her.

“Are you okay?” He asks Veronica.

“I’m holding on,” she answers truthfully. “I’m just worried for him. He tries so hard. It’s not fair.”

Lance places one hand over hers as he pulls the transmitter off. His color has improved, and he seems more alert now.

“You don’t have to worry, sis,” he says, smiling. “I’m managing okay.”

“Like fun,” she grouses, stroking his hair. She extends a hand and helps extricate him from his crouch. Hunk jumps to his feet, too, ready to assist as needed. Lance seems steady, but he leans into Hunk for a hug.

“Sorry to scare you, buddy.”

“It’s okay. I just want to help.” Hunk squeezes him as hard as he dares. He can feel hip bone digging into his side. He tries not to think about it.

“This helps,” Lance murmurs into his ear, releasing him. Veronica lets him go, too, and Lance sidles into the darkened bedroom, sitting on the corner of his mattress as he gets undressed down to his undershirt, underwear, and socks.

Veronica hovers in the doorway, fretting. Hunk puts a hand on her waist, draws her into a hug on instinct. To his surprise, she throws herself into it, allowing herself just one sobbing breath.

He whispers, “He’s just depressed. This day is always hard.”

Veronica shakes her head but does not fight to escape his embrace.

It’s Lance who corrects him. “I’m not _just_ depressed, Hunk.”

He face overheats. He hadn’t meant to say that part loud. “I didn’t mean that being depressed isn’t serious, it’s not _just_ anything—"

“No,” Lance interrupts. “I mean I’m not just depressed, like, alone. I’m also schizophrenic.”

When Lance neither elaborates or laughs, Hunk realizes he is serious. Veronica’s downturned lips and pinched eyebrows confirm it. She eases out of Hunk’s arms and walks over to sit across from her brother on her own bed, legs tucked underneath her, her hand outstretched to take his. She looks at Hunk, expectant and defensive; one wrong word, and she’ll chase him out.

“That--is not what I expected,” he says, honestly.

Lance nods, resting his forearms on his legs. Veronica relaxes; this is the right approach. Hunk has a million questions, but it seems impolite to ask and better to draw out answers through empathy. This is supposed to be a chance to talk, not interrogate his friend. He flounders for what to say and decides to stick with the truth.

“Wow,” he says. “I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. It’s not your fault.”

He sounds so indifferent to something that should be so important that Hunk escalates to contact. He plods over to the bed to wrap his arms around Lance from behind. It has the desired effect; Lance looks up from his lap up at him. His expression is neutral, a shocking lack of emotion for someone usually vibrating with it.

“It’s not your fault either.” Hunk says, meaning it.

Whatever the right or wrong thing to say might be, this, at least, turns the indifference around. Lance’s guarded expression dissolves into something more open and vulnerable. He turns into Hunk and wraps his arms around his waist.

“That’s what I keep telling myself.” He mutters, “Then again, lots of voices in my head these days.”

“Then I’ll tell you,” Hunk harrumphs, brooking no argument. “And I’ll tell you louder than any of them. You’re sick, that’s all. It’s no one’s fault that you’re sick, least of all yours.”

Lance cracks a crooked smile. “Thanks, man.”

“I’m sorry I said you were depressed.”

Lance nods as if this is something he hears all the time. “I didn’t expect it, either,” he says after mulling it over a while. “Being crazy, I mean.”

“You’re not crazy,” Hunk warns him, crushing him tighter into his hug. “At least not because of this.”

Lance taps his chin with a light fist, but his tone is playful, almost like what Hunk remembers as his normal. “I’m sorry about the stuff I said about Shay.” He thinks a moment, adds, “And Veronica.”

Veronica startles on her side of the room; clearly, she had not been told the cover story for her accompanying her brother to Altea.

“And Shiro and Keith. There’s just—there are so many things my head is telling me these days, I can’t always tell the difference between what’s made up and what’s real.”

Seeing the look on Hunk’s face, Lance backtracks, “I mean, nothing serious. Just, little things. Things I think happened or didn’t, or that I heard but no one else did.”

“Like me and Shay being together. And us having kids?”

Lance wriggles a bit until he’s out of Hunks arms and reclining against the headboard, arms around his legs. “Yeah. That—I don’t know what to tell you about that. It’s a really strong impression.” Lance sighs. “Sometimes, it feels like reality is wrong.”

There is nowhere Hunk wants to go with that information that is useful, so he says nothing.

“But it’s just me, being crazy,” Lance continues. “I should’ve known.”

“How could you know? Does it happen a lot? Suddenly developing mental illness, I mean.”

“Late onset. It happens. The doctor said something about,” Lance scrunches up his nose, trying to recall the words, “biphasic distribution. Whatever it is, I’m in the range somewhere.”

“It’s good that you’re seeing somebody.” It is a relief to hear the word “doctor,” because that implies Lance is getting help and it isn’t all on him to fix himself.

Lance laughs, mirthlessly. “And what a field day she had with my history. All that traipsing all over the universe, to other universes, to the void in between, and nothing. I turn twenty-two, and suddenly I’ve lost all my marbles.”

“Hey, watch it,” Hunk says, “or I’ll have to hug you until you’re not being stupid again.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t the stupid one.”

This is almost teasing, and Hunk could cry for how normal it sounds.

“I said you’re _being_ stupid, not that you _are_ stupid.”

Lance flips him off. “I’m the crazy one, I get to make jokes about it. That’s the rule.”

He tries a different approach. “Does the rest of your family know?”

“Yeah, I mean, no, not really. I told Veronica because she’s nosy--like you--and she keeps annoying me about meds and stuff.” He sticks his tongue out at his sister; she blows him a kiss.

Thank god for Veronica, is Hunk’s opinion. Which he keeps to himself and lets Lance continue talking.

“My parents think I’m depressed, too. If I tell them I’ve got a disease that can be genetic, they might barbecue my _abuela_.”

He grins, turns away from Hunk, kissing his fingertips and placing them against the glass of a photo on the nightstand. It’s a luddite touch, bringing printed copies of photos on vacation, but given what Veronica said about routine, Hunk thinks he understands. He thinks it’s sweet, too, carrying around a hard copy of a photo. Several, if the bedside table is any indication.

The one photo is of his entire family, but the kiss is for Grandmother McClain. “She always was a little kooky.”

Then he sees another framed picture, sees a gleeful, younger version of his friend next to a beautiful woman who appears equally enamored. Allura gets a kiss, too.

“It’s funny,” Lance says, not speaking to Hunk or Veronica so much as himself as his fingertip strokes over Allura’s cheek. “The first voice I heard was hers. I didn’t think anything of it because--”

“Because you wanted to hear it.” Hunk says, and Lance nods. That’s understandable. How many times had his own ears rung with the voices of loved ones in times of stress? When he hadn’t known if his parents were alive? He’d heard their voices so clear in his head.

“Except I actually heard it. I had a whole conversation with her about how I was meeting up with all of you. I told her I’d see her at the next Allura Day.”

He shakes his head once with violence, as if to dislodge something in his ear. “I talked to a dead woman about how I was going to spend the anniversary of her death and never once realized that might be a bad sign.”

It is, but Hunk won’t presume to pass judgment. “Do you still hear her?”

Lance nods his head in the direction of the bathroom. “Drugs.”

As kindly as ever Hunk has heard her, Veronica says, “That’s not a ‘no.’”

“Yeah.”

Veronica presses him, “‘Yeah,’ you don’t hear her or ‘yeah’ you do?”

Lance drags a hand over his face. “You’re worse than the shrink.”

“Still not an answer.” Veronica crosses her arms.

“That tone may work on your wife, but it doesn’t work on me, Vee.” Lance spits back without thinking, rolling his eyes to the ceiling and smiling.

After all that he’s heard, Hunk doesn’t know what to say as the word “wife” suddenly rematerializes in the room, doesn’t know whether to correct him. Veronica marshals her expression better than he does; his face betrays everything, or must do, as Lance’s fondness disappears into blankness as he withdraws once more.

He drops his head to his chest and, downcast, he mutters, “I said something weird again.”

Without confirming or denying, Hunk asks, “Do you know what you said?

Lance says nothing for a tick, then, “I don’t think the meds are helping.”

“What else is there?”

Lance waves a hand to encompass everything, or nothing. “Therapy. Avoiding triggers. Using distractions like music. More drugs, different ones. I guess I have to keep trying.”

Hunk reaches out a hand to place on Lance’s shoulder. He squeezes, feels more bone than he thinks he should. “Can I help?”

Lance covers Hunk’s hand with his own, returns the squeeze. “This _is_ helping,” he repeats. He takes a deep breath and forces it out. “Sex would be nice, too. Being crazy has definitely put a damper on my love life.”

Veronica pretends to stick her finger down her throat and gag.

“You’re on your own there,” Hunk mumbles, his cheeks flushing for the third time today.

“Yeah,” Lance says resting his head back against the wall. “Story of my life.”

“Hey, no way.” Hunk huffs. “We’re here.” A thought occurs to him then. “Have you told the others?”

Lance shakes his head. “Not…not specifically.”

It’s a dodge, which means somebody knows or suspects, or at least knew or suspected more than Hunk has. But not everybody, if Pidge’s reaction was anything to go by. Pidge. Her name lights up connections in his head, the origin of an idea.

“What about Pidge?”

Lance squirms, rubs his arm. “I dunno, Hunk. I’m not really thrilled at the idea of telling a lot of people that I’m crazy. Not while I’m still working on _not_ being crazy.”

Hunk persists. “She’s built a robot brain. Which means she probably studied brains. She might be able to help.”

“You want her to turn me into a creepy kill-bot? No thank you.”

“He has a doctor,” Veronica joins in. “He doesn’t need a mechanic.”

Hunk disagrees. “Sometimes, when something’s broken, that’s exactly what you need. A fresh pair of eyes, a different approach—”

“They call them ‘second opinions,’” Lance sneers. “Had several of those, too.”

“Mental illness,” Hunk intones, imperious, “is a problem of synapses and chemicals. It’s all just electrical signals getting confused. Not so different from software with coding errors, is it? And who better to debug a glitch or hack around a problem than an engineer?”

Lance shoots a nervous but hopeful sort of glance in Veronica’s direction. It’s his noggin, but while it’s in this much disarray, Hunk can’t fault him for leaning on her. Veronica taps the side of her glasses, thoughtful and precise when next she speaks.

“There would have to be certain safety precautions taken,” she says slowly. “I don’t really want my brother to turn into a robot.” The look she sends Lance’s way is fond and silly. “But I don’t want to do that with meds, either.”

“Can we talk to Pidge, then?”

Lance takes a deep breath, releases it in a rush. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt?” He wheezes that half-chuckle he keeps doing that makes it sound more like he’s out of breath than laughing. “I’ve already lost my mind. What else have I got to lose?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I'm on Twitter now?](https://twitter.com/TrinityVixen)


	4. Turning and turning in the widening gyre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge builds artificial brains. It's harder to analyze a living one.

Hunk is alarmingly non-specific as to why he, Lance, and Veronica need to steal her away from her precious research time but not to take her out of her lab. That has Pidge preparing for the worst. The comm had come through about a week after Allura Day, the request to meet up in her laboratory and hash out a problem. A problem that needed to involve her, her lab, and them and no one else, preferably. Hunk had not been explicit about that last part, but he had made sure to ascertain that Matt would be out and her father unlikely to drop by on the date they agreed to meet up. She loves her friends, but subtle they are not.

For the first time since the lions disappeared, she genuinely isn’t sure what is coming to her. Life as a Paladin had been full of surprises, but they were the usual sorts of surprises—bad ones, mostly—that you solved by punching or by outthinking an enemy. Not to brag, but she was pretty good at both. But with this crowd, barring some shenanigans from alternate versions of themselves or clones—highly unlikely explanations, but possible—she did not expect an enemy. Nor, despite Hunk’s involvement, a challenge from them that would be so hard to solve that she would need anything other than her brain.

Because science demanded it, she admits, even if not aloud, that she was wrong when the problem is, haltingly, explained. It takes her the better part of a full minute to say anything at all when Lance finishes explaining.

“I—”

“Please don’t say you’re sorry. I hear that enough.” Lance winces, glances at both Hunk and Veronica. “In stereo.”

“It was my idea to come,” Hunk cries, sounding as if he might actually start tearing up. “I thought we could maybe put our heads together and come up with something to help that wasn’t just—”

“Drugs and therapy?” She asks, and all three nod in reply. “I appreciate your faith in me, guys, but I’m not a doctor. Aren’t drugs and therapy what are needed?”

She does not add that they probably all need them, to some degree. The Garrison required her father to undergo therapy when he returned from space, and he’s been honest with his family about his sessions continuing. It seems to have helped her dad, but she’s not keen to let anyone monkey around in her head. There have been enough visitors up there for her lifetime.

That thought melts her hesitancy a bit. Quintessence bonds, conversations in their own minds with the long-dead former Paladins, with trees on Olkarion—it all sounds a bit crazy, summed up like that. That had been during times of stress. If that had kept on happening all the time, hell yeah, she’d want another option for controlling the chaos.

Her dilemma has not translated to the others, who look off-put by her answer until she says, “Unless—”

“Unless what?” Veronica sits forward on her stool, keen.

She does not immediately have an answer for that, but she recognizes the hazy edge of an idea at the periphery of her consciousness. Drugs and therapy work for mental illness, yes, but if one placed mental illness in the larger context of general illness, perhaps…perhaps there was something.

“There are other options,” she chews on each word as she says it. What would she do differently if it were any other disease?

“Uh yeah, that’s kind of what I was hoping for,” Lance says.

It almost derails the idea that is weaving together with threads, how much that sounds like him—like the normal him, the him from ten minutes ago when she didn’t have this new problem to solve.

“What would we do differently,” she says slowly, “if it were his brain that were the problem, not his mind?”

“My brain is the problem, Pidge.”

“No, it’s your mind,” she corrects him. “Or, rather, that is the assumption. We ought to test that hypothesis.”

Hunk inhales sharply. “Ohhhhhhh,” he says on the exhale. He’s coming along with her.

Veronica raises a sharp eyebrow, decidedly not keeping pace with them. “What?” She asks Hunk, then to Pidge, “What?”

Start with what you know, then formulate a hypothesis about what could be, then test it. That’s how science is done.

“Lance is hearing things.”

“Yeah, we know,” Veronica snaps.

“You really don’t,” Lance mutters. “It’s like being stuck at a party all the time and everybody’s shouting to be heard.”

Pidge shoots him an encouraging smile. “Mental illness is like any other illness—the problem is very likely physical. Or electrochemical, when it comes to the brain. The mind’s response to it is the variable because the mind is not physical. It’s not just a summation of electrical signals and gray matter.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “At least, not according to some philosophies.”

“That doesn’t sound very scientific of you,” Veronica says, her words thick with confusion. “I thought we were going to think through answers here.”

“We are,” Pidge stresses, fishing for the right metaphor to explain herself. “If you break your arm and then, years later, you can remember that pain, your mind knows it’s a memory of an injury, not another injury. The problem is your mind would have trouble doing that about itself if, say, the part of it responsible for regulating stuff like that was what was injured.”

All three are silent for a tick, then Lance _laughs_. It is a shrill, ever-so-slightly concerning sound, pitched just-this-side of wild. He rubs at his eyes as they water.

“Oh quiznak, are you saying my brain is broken because my _brain_ is broken?”

“Sort of,” Pidge says, lifting and dropping her shoulders. “We were Paladins. We’ve been rattled around a lot. We’ve all been knocked unconscious numerous times. Traumatic brain injury, overstimulation—these have been shown to cause lasting, permanent physical changes of the brain. I’m just proposing we look and see if it has.”

She does _not_ mention that, even if she finds such a lesion, there may be nothing she can do about it. Instead, she taps her finger to her lip, not ready to leap to the worst conclusion—the evidence must come first.

“Has anyone done any magnetic resonance imaging on you, Lance?”

“I don’t know what that is, so I guess not?”

“You’d guess right,” she concurs. “You’d have remembered. What about quantum spectral analysis? Quintessence mapping?”

Hunk goggles at her. “You can do that?”

Pidge rubs at the back of her neck. “Well, no, not yet, I don’t think. But it’s something I’m interested in doing—seeing if you can trace the energy signature of individual reserves of quintessence. I mean, it’s something we all know exists and can tap into and is even dense enough to collect and use to fuel magic, so there must—”

“Focus, please,” Veronica demands.

Dreams of complicated machinery and quintessence field theory fall apart with Veronica’s interruption, but the intrusion is useful. She needs to get back on point. What was her point? Physical assessment of perceived injury. Right. “Bloodwork?”

Lance blinks at her. “What?”

Pidge groans. “Has anyone even checked to see if you have normal blood work—blood cells, electrolytes, whatever?”

Pidge shoves herself away from the group sitting together, propelling her stool backwards as she activates the virtual keyboard in her office. She shouts requests for doctors’ names, locations, most of which Veronica supplies. Lance adds a few names, not all of which Veronica agrees with. Though her corrections are quiet and non-accusatory, she is firm in her denials. Pidge checks the names anyway, just to be sure. She finds most of them. Some of them are even doctors; half are not. It’s evidence, if she needed any to prove what three people are reporting to her. As a scientist, she should appreciate it. She finds she does not.

“Mind if I—” she says even as she is running programs around patient confidentiality protections. Lance is in her lab spilling secrets; it feels like less on an invasion of privacy to hack his private medical records. Less, not…not. Hence, half-asking.

“Go for it,” Lance says.

She already has, but confirmation is nice. Unfortunately, the results fail to impress—drugs and therapy, like she said. No bloodwork. No imaging. She scans the doctors’ untidy scrawls for any mention of physical concerns. Most make interested sidebars about the markings on his face; none seem to have followed through on researching anything about them. No concerns about traumatic brain injuries, but weight loss comes up a lot.

Pidge peers over her shoulder, reassessing Lance. He’s wearing layers, that much she can tell from the haphazard, random way bits of different shirts peek out around his neck. At a glance, she can tell he’s wearing at least an undershirt, a button down, a hooded sweatshirt, and a jacket, a thick one. She checks the temperature in the room—seventy-five degrees, thanks to her computer rigging—and catalogues that bit of data into the file she is dumping his records into. Weight loss, check, but possibly not enough body mass to efficiently thermoregulate? Note for later.

“No blood work,” she says, spinning around on her seat. “We start there. Then an MRI. Maybe a CT.” She’s not sure which is better, but by the time they can wrangle one, she’ll know more about it that the technician running it.

“Can you do any of that here?” Lance says, rubbing his hands together. He cocks his head to the side, listening to an answer, Pidge surmises, that is not coming from her.

“Unfortunately, not. But the Garrison has the best equipment on Earth.”

“The Garrison?” Hunk frowns. “We were kinda hoping to do this under the radar, Pidge.”

“Yeah, you all look bad if the brass finds out I’m a fruitcake—hey!” Lance shrieks as Veronica cuffs his shoulder.

“What my brother is trying to say,” Veronica says, her one eyelid twitching, “is we want to rule out any other explanation for this issue before we go involving official channels.”

Pidge wants to argue the point, but she bites her tongue because these are her friends and they’re asking her for help. If they thought they could get it elsewhere, they would have. That thought stings, a bit. Half of her wants to refuse, feeling used. Another, more compassionate half, is already working out a solution. There will be time to talk about trust and such later.

“I could,” she muses, “re-task some of the equipment cataloguing hourly adaptations of Chip’s silicone-based synapses.”

Lance shudders, probably because he’s cold even under all those layers. Weird, though, that Hunk and Veronica do the same.

“I’d just need to get the magnet for the actual particle adjustments. Shouldn’t be too hard to make one out of the coiling I use for the wormhole generator, if I can get a steady enough current through it with a drawdown of service elsewhere. Or I could use the liquid helium I have cooling the server room to generate a superconductive--”

“English, I’m begging you,” Lance moans.

“It worries me that they let you be a pilot and you are this bad at physics,” Pidge grouses. “Electromagnetic theory is older than the dinosaurs.”

“I’ll be older than the dinosaurs by the time you explain it,” Lance shoots back. “Just tell me the timeline, okay?”

She thinks. “I might have something ready in about a week. Maybe two at the longest?”

“Right,” Veronica says, nodding once, decided. “We can get some bloodwork done with a doctor in the meantime, send you the results.”

“Oh, yay, needles. My favorite.”

“I can help, if you need, Pidge,” Hunk offers. “It’s been a while, but I’m sure I can still wield a spanner as good as a spatula.”

She worries her lip with her teeth, considers this. Hunk is a capable, intelligent engineer, and if they’re going to keep this under wraps, she’ll need the extra hands. But if they’re going for stealthy, pulling the Coalition’s Culinary Ambassador offline will attract a lot of attention.

“Shay will cover for him,” Lance says, anticipating her.

Hunk squints at him, a bit of a blush creeping back onto his broad cheekbones. “How do you know that? Wait, do you know that, or is it…uh, well, you know.”

“Bit of both?” Lance’s answer is also a question. “She likes you. She always likes—liked you.”

“Really?”

“Really. But consider the source before you get too happy, buddy.” Lance gestures to himself, crossing his eyes and twirling his index finger around in a circle near his temple.

Pidge eyes them both, then Veronica. “Does this—does this happen a lot?”

Veronica sighs, tips her head towards her shrugging shoulders. “More or less.”

Another note for her file, then.

“All right,” she says, clapping her hands. “Time for you guys to leave while Hunk and I get started.” She shoos Veronica and Lance, standing to follow and help them find the exit. The gesture turns out to be unnecessary as Veronica has an infallible sense of direction. She’s out the exterior door when Lance stops to wish Pidge luck.

“I don’t need luck, I have science,” she scoffs.

Lance’s grin is genuine and silly. “I’m in your hands, Doc,” he says, seriously, shaking her hand with both of his like a politician. His fingertips are like ice.

He turns to follow Veronica out when he stops, hand on the knob. He looks back at her, still on the stairway. His eyes are unfocused and watery.

“Quintessence is energy, so it should have mass. Spacetime curvature around mass can be difficult to calculate with gravitational time dilation interference. It’s probably why the Galra always did their quintessence experiments in space—easier to measure and manipulate quintessence without gravity.”

Her jaw hangs slack while he speaks, long enough for a bit of drool to slip out. Then Lance shakes his head, drops his eyes to her feet and does not raise them again.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I meant to say I’ll see you later. Whatever I said, uh, can we pretend I didn’t? I didn’t mean it--”

“No!” She shouts, cutting him off. “No, no, you didn’t say anything wrong. That—that was actually helpful?”

“Glad to hear it.”

He does not sound in the least bit pleased, but then he’s gone, and she is still running the maths in her head when he leaves, too startled to reassure him further. In this state, she floats back to her office where Hunk is still waiting instructions. One look at her face and he grimaces.

“Whatever he said, he didn’t mean it. He tries, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying sometimes.”

“That’s what Lance said,” she murmurs, dreamily. Gravitational time dilation pulling on spacetime enough to obscure an energy signature as intense as quintessence. There’s something there. She’s going to need clearance to go back into space if she wants to test it, research space on a minimally-populated, non-orbital interstellar vehicle, preferably one at rest to remove inertia and momentum from the…

Hunk is looking at her, expectant. What was Hunk saying? Lance doesn’t know something?

What he’s saying! She nods, goes to jot down something else in her file, narrating to Hunk. “Broca’s area. And Wernicke’s, too.”

“What?”

“Parts of the brain that analyze and produce speech. I built a similar section into Chip’s brain. If Lance is saying things and he doesn’t know what he’s saying, then that part of his brain might be affected.”

Hunk blinks at her.

“That’s a good thing, Hunk.”

“Kinda sounds like you’re saying Lance has brain damage.”

“Better than being crazy.”

“Is it?”

*****

Pidge knows the brain. In another life, in another universe, maybe she was a neuroscientist or surgeon or whatever. She would have been good at it. She’s not humble enough to pretend otherwise. Her brain has been remarkable since she was old enough to be self-aware—something that came on far too young and in so doing confirmed her own brain’s exceptional status.

Seeing her brain in pictures does nothing to lessen her awe of and pride in it—quite the contrary. She insists on being the first test subject of her ad-hoc MRI. With tweaking, she can even assess functional MRI data and still meet her two-week deadline. When she thinks over answers to specific questions, the flares of color that light up her brain resemble nebulae she has seen in deepest space. Her brain contains multitudes; she repeats the scans on Lance and his does, too.

They are alone for the testing. Hunk was needed on a diplomatic mission that couldn’t be delayed. Veronica’s absence makes Pidge a titch nervous, for which, in turn, she churns with guilt. Whatever conversations Lance is having with whomever in his own head, he seems remarkably stable during testing. Enough that he actually falls asleep and she has to shout to get him to answer questions for the purposes of the fMRI data.

And anyway, it’s _Lance_. He is not a threat to anybody. Still, some instinctual core of her being is cataloguing her relative strength and awareness against his. Just in case. It’s horrible and small-minded and ignorant, the last bothering her as much as the first.

She casually inquires after his sister all the same as she begins to collate the data from his scan. “Where’s Veronica?”

He shrugs. “I don’t need minding all the time. Crazy,” he points at his temple, “not stupid.” He frowns, making a show of thinking about it. “Not too stupid, anyway.” He jerks his chin at her monitors, at the black and white images on her monitors. “Did you learn anything?”

She clears her throat, acknowledging the change of subject. She’s better with the data anyway. She calls up her own scans, positions them to flank his.

“Now, keep in mind what I said before about all of us likely having brain damage from aliens being too punch-happy with Voltron,” she hedges, then runs the playback. The black, white, and gray images run anterior to posterior— “front to back,” she adds, just to be sure he’s following—and she describes major structures on the regular MRI first.

Lance is suitably impressed. “You built an MRI _and_ became a neurologist overnight?”

Puffing up a bit, she says, “I adapted algorithms used for assessing differences in radiofrequencies emanating from deep space to read the images against a databank of thousands of scans and their accompanying diagnoses that I stripped from a hospital server.”

He smirks at her. “This stealing patient data stuff is getting to be a habit of yours.”

Pidge’s cheeks feel hot under the rim of her glasses. “I took off the personal details.” Which makes it better, not great, that she did it and is an admittedly pathetic excuse for a gross violation of other people’s privacy.

Lance pats her hard on the back. “If the police come knocking, you can always blame me. They’d only put me in a padded room.”

“No one would believe you could hack a hospital server,” she shoots back, tittering nervously. The jokes, she is still not used to.

“You could say I threatened you,” Lance laughs, holding his arms up high and wiggling his fingers.

“That’s even less believable,” she counters, shoving her chair away from his.

Too late, his hands make contact and she regrets ever letting anyone know how ticklish she is. She is about to plead for mercy when his fingers touch bare skin on her neck and she yelps.

“Holy crap!” She swears, breathless, slapping her hand over his. “How are your hands so cold?”

“Sorry,” he says as he retreats, not sounding at all apologetic. “Bad circulation on the latest meds. My hands are always freezing.”

She catches his arm before he can withdraw fully, turns his palm over in her hand to examine it. His fingertips are purple, shading to white at the very ends.

“Raynaud’s syndrome,” she says, nodding to herself.

“And who’s he when he’s at home?”

“Your fingers, the color,” she explains. “It has to do with vasoconstriction of blood vessels in the extremities.”

“Oh. Fun.” He reclaims his hands and stuffs them under his armpits and nods to her scans. “Does anything wrong with my brain have a stupid name, too?”

Right, back to work. She scrolls through the black and white images again. “Not really. Gross anatomical outlines, including solid and liquid matter, will vary slightly, depending on the person scanned. The key is to look for changes within structures, areas of attenuation—” She checks with her audience, adjusts her vocabulary. “Areas of different shading within an ultrastructure, to see if-- _if_ there’s been damage.”

“And there isn’t any,” Lance says, taking his cue from her tone. She nods, and he pouts, “Man, I never thought I’d be disappointed to hear I _didn’t_ have brain damage.”

“Damage, no,” she says slowly, overlaying some measurements onto the images. “Changes—yes.”

There are charts, a distribution curve that Lance’s personal data falls on the extreme end of. The calculations and statistics, alas, speak for themselves. Or should, to someone who spent the last two weeks learning how to read them. Lance only stares owlishly at them and her, waiting for an explanation.

She has only one. “Overall, your brain _volume_ is decreased.”

Lance blink at her, then chortles, “You spent two weeks building this machine just to _officially_ call me stupid? That’s low, Pidge.”

“No, no! Brain volume is not positively associated with intelligence.” She calls up the measurements of her own scan, shows him how she falls in the middle of the distribution curve. “See? I rate above average as far as intelligence, but I’m in the middle of the volume curve.”

“Above average?” Lance asks, squinting at her. “Are you fishing for compliments, Pidge?” She sticks her tongue out at him. “Okay, so, not being stupid is the good news. What’s the bad news?”

“Well,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear, unsure of how to break her findings down for her. “Reductions in brain mass can be correlated with illness.”

Lance’s eyes widen. “So, you’re saying I _could_ be sick? I mean, physically?” His lips fight against a relieved smile and tremble around some words he doesn’t say.

Pidge holds her palm out flat, tips it back and forth. “Sort of? Overlap with healthy brains make diagnosing disease from volume changes difficult. But maybe.”

He turns his head, glances at her from the corner of his eye, skeptical. “I’m not hearing a lot of faith in that ‘maybe,’ Pidge.”

“The options for what causes decreased cerebral volume include traumatic brain injury and encephalitis, but,” she bites her lip then plunges ahead, “also genetic degenerative disease, schizophrenia, and dementia.”

“Oh.”

The last dregs of animation and hope drain from his expression. He slumps over his lap, braces his forearms on his legs.

“There are physical causes, things that can be worked on or that we could still rule out--”

Lance shakes his head, pre-empting her. “What does it matter? I’m still crazy and odds are it’s not going to get better. Heck, Pidge—dementia? That means it’ll get _worse_.”

Pidge argues the point, forces optimism into her words. “This was just the first step. There are ways to rule out infection or inflammation in your brain. And dementia as a diagnosis is something that can be combatted with different therapies than are usually applied to schizophrenia. We could maybe slow the deterioration. I haven’t gotten far into xenobiological solutions, but that’s an option—”

“Options. Oh goodie,” Lance mopes. “Can’t get enough of those.” He sighs, picking himself back up with difficulty and leaning back in his chair. He rests one hand over his stomach, brushes the other through his short hair. “What did you mean about—” he screws up his nose, trying to recall the word—“‘xenobiological’? Like, aliens?”

“Yeah, we’re not just limited to human physiology and medicine here.”

“But where do you even start?”

She rolls her eyes, points at her cheek. “Well, the obvious answer is looking us, literally in the face. We start with Alteans.”

Lance shakes his head. “Decoration, Pidge. I’m not Altean.”

“No,” Pidge concedes, “but it’s a start. Alteans live a long time, relative to humans. There has to be some defensive, protective mechanism that keeps their brains from breaking down over that long a time.”

“If you’re going on average lifespan, why not Galra? Didn’t Zarkon live for thousands of years?”

Pidge scoffs. “He was not a typical Galra any more than Honerva was a typical Altean.” Honestly, the history of the Galra Empire and its duration seems to have overridden the actual experience anyone has ever had with actual Galrans.

“Altean biology is pretty close to Terran,” she redirects. “They have similar developmental parameters, other than the long lifespan. Bipedal, two biological sexes, k-selected species sexual reproduction strategies…”

“Lots of nutters,” Lance adds, pursing his lips against a smile. “Look at Coran. Look at Lotor. Who knows? Maybe Honerva wasn’t that unusual for an Altean after all.” He shrugs, laces his hands together over his stomach.

“I guess it’s a good thing for this universe I’m not smart enough to destroy all realities because my head sounds like a chorus of galpshonts hortling.”

Dumbfounded, Pidge asks, “What is a _galpshont_?”

Lance thinks a minute. “I have no idea,” he answers, truthfully. He seems neither surprised nor pleased by this.

Pidge turns back to her console, researches the term. Galpshonts turn out be reptilian platypus-zebra hybrid creatures. They both blink at the picture, at the description—it was an Altean beast of burden, as extinct as its home planet. Hortling is when a quorum of galpshonts chitter at sub-ultrasonic frequencies before the start of a stampede. Very dangerous time to be around galpshonts, the entry on the xenoveterinary database supplies. Hence, apparently, the old Altean euphemism “I didn’t think things were bad, but then I heard the galpshonts hortling.”

Pidge mutters, “We are definitely starting with Altean biology.”

Lance smiles, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling. It shifts the shape of the Altean markings on his cheeks from a chevron into a crimped polygon. They should less prominent on Lance’s sun-kissed skin, but they almost seem to glow with how much they _don’t_ recede on his face.

“Hey,” she says, “Are you sure those are just ornamental?”

Lance touches one of his cheeks with his first two fingers, tracing their shape as if from memory. Then he touches the rounded shell of his ear. “Pretty sure.” He waggles his fingers. “No magic.” Lower, he says, “I’ve checked.”

“Might be worth a whole genome scan. Maybe a biopsy?”

Lance’s jaw drops. “Cut _this_ face?” He claps a hand over his chest, scandalized. “My looks are all I have _left_ , Pidge. Don’t you dare.”

Pidge files away his objection as the nonsense it is. “Interspecies biological homology is where I have to tap out anyway.”

His smile fades as Lance presses his lips together. “You mean you can’t—”

She shakes her head. “I can build anything with the right tools. I can even read scans and compare literature, but I’m not going to be able to train myself to be an Altean biologist in weeks or months. If things aren’t improving or are going to worsen in that time, you really should see a doctor. We can explain what we found, seek a third or fourth opinion until somebody listens--”

“Okay,” Lance agrees. “Whatever you say.”

Pidge gapes at him. “Really? You’re okay with this?” She grips the fabric of her sleeve, agitated. “You said you wanted to keep this private.”

Lance stands then, towering over her. “You gave it a shot. Knowing you, you did better than your best. I appreciate it, Pidge. This is more than anyone else has given me in months. They keep just telling me to try new meds.”

He manages a shaky grin for her, massages his forehead with one hand, leaving the other pressed into the skin just below his sternum. “Even if this is just your fancy way of saying I need new meds, it’s something.”

Pidge returns his smile with one of her own. “We have friends who will help.”

She means the other Paladins, but also the Alteans. Alteans are not just the most likely source of useful information, but also their most sympathetic audience. Lance’s celebrity status there is likely to make him an object of gossip, but it could also open doors for them. There must be Altean biologists or alchemists who can offer suggestions or remedies, if they’ve had similar issues in the past. Or, perhaps, more importantly, if they _haven’t_.

And they could also tap Coalition resources, too; if it’s all going public, might as well go big. Lance isn’t part of the Coalition formally any more, but the cache of being a Paladin should help there, too. If not, well, then all five Paladins will descend on them to make the demand. They owe them. And if brute force and intimidation doesn’t work, maybe Shiro can finesse something. There must be some perk for being a former admiral, and all.

Shiro. An idea sparks to life.

“Shiro has Altean biology!”

She didn’t mean to shout, but while she pondered their options, Lance had already walked to the door. In her panic, she needed him not to leave and that translated to volume.

Lance grabs at his shirt over his chest, hyperventilating a bit. “What did you do that for? I almost had a heart attack!”

No time to spare his feelings, Pidge spins around in a circle to reach for her comm device. “His arm is controlled by Altean magic! Which means his mind interfaces with Altean magic. Which means he’s an ideal candidate to study the alchemical-neurobiological construct of a human-Altean hybrid!”

She has a comm open and connecting before her shame catches up to her. Guiltily, she glances at Lance, who, in turn, is staring at her.

“He should know, but—” She hesitates. “It’s your call.”

“He knows enough,” Lance says, closing his eyes, resigned. “Shiro won’t—he’ll understand.”

It means making a guinea pig out him, Pidge thinks, too late, which might be more than a little triggering for Shiro. But Lance is right—even if it is, Shiro will do it.

A familiar face pops up on her screen. Shiro is wearing his glasses and sitting up against a pillow; a shadow cast by the light to his left resembles a head. He isn’t alone, and he’s in bed. Pidge checks the time—ten-thirty? When did that happen?—and plasters her most ingratiating smile on her lips.

“Pidge? Lance? Hey! Long time no—” He stops, blinks at her strained expression. “Everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” she hastens to inform him through her rictus grin. “We just have a—” What is a non-alarming word for a non-emergent but urgent matter? “A concern.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “Do you need me to address this ‘concern’ right now?”

She looks over at Lance, but he is staring at his feet and muttering darkly.

She nods, sharply. “Definitely. And, uh, privately, if we could?”

Shiro’s eyes slide to his left and linger there. “Sure. Let me ring you back. Give me five minutes.”

The comm screen blackens out.

“Trouble in paradise,” Lance’s mutterings travel to her ears.

“Huh?”

Lance still has his head hung low, his gaze trained on the ground. “Never mind.”

They’re alone. Hunk, Veronica--they have made the effort to minimize, downplay, or silence Lance’s musings around her. But if she’s going to help, knowing the nature of his delusions might offer insight into his condition. And anyway, she can’t help herself; she’s _curious_.

“What was that?”

“Shiro should never have married that guy,” Lance grumbles. “We don’t even know him. He’s nobody.”

That’s rude, but Pidge isn’t innocent of thinking the same stuff. For the sake of drawing him out, she plays Devil’s advocate. “Curtis seems okay.”

“He’s the reason all the Garrison pilots died!” Lance growls, spinning in place to punch her office door. Somehow, he’d sat through the entire process of getting an MRI, listened the explanations about it, discussed being crazy and/or having brain damage, but this is what he chooses to get agitated about.

Pidge says nothing, just watches him pace and flail his arms.

“He’s the one! The one who sent out a warning on an open channel and basically invited the Galra to attack the Earth! Why does no one ever want to talk about that?”

She has no information about whether that is true or not. Whatever had drawn the Galra to Earth, she was too busy fighting them to care. Still, she provokes him. “I don’t think that’s what happened.” Remembering that she’s alone in a room with a person of questionable mental health, she couches her objection gently. “You’re, maybe, misremembering?”

“Oh sure, override the crazy guy,” Lance snaps back, wagging a finger at her. “Just because I’m not always in my right mind doesn’t mean I’m _always_ wrong.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Kinda feels that way!”

His hands are clenched into fists at his side. Her heart leaps high in her chest, a thrill of adrenaline and fear shoving it higher still. She is _alone_. She can still probably take him, if it escalates. Better approach is to make sure it doesn’t.

She holds up hands at shoulder height, palms out to him—a surrender. “Sorry?”

This does not deescalate the situation. Lance’s cheeks flush with anger and tears form at the corner of his eyes, which he bashes away with his fists.

“I wish people would stop saying that!”

Lance jerks open her office door and storms out. A tick and several heartbeats later, she remembers that Veronica isn’t there to show him the way out of her research compound, and she dashes after him.

“Lance! Wait, I need to show you—”

“I remember!” He hollers, waving her off as he, accurately, stomps in the direction of the exit, still ranting to himself. “Can’t even handle Cartesian coordinates without a babysitter anymore!” Then, “It’s not like this is some Hausdroffian dimensionality nightmare—”

That’s the last she hears before he slams through the outside door. Her mind bounces around like a toddler with too much candy. Before today, if she’d mentioned Hausdroff, any one of the Paladins other than Hunk would probably have asked what kind of beer that was. She hesitates, wanting to run after him to ask—his last out-of-nowhere conjecture about quintessence is turning up interesting results in theoretical models--but her legs are shaky from nerves. Eventually, a ringing pierces through her ping-ponging between curiosity and aborted fight-or-flight reflexes. Someone is comming her in her office.

“Shiro!” She squeaks, rushing back to her office.

Pidge reaches her console just in time to connect the comm. Shiro has on a jacket now, and he appears to be in a bathroom. He also has on a headset so that the audio is piped directly to him and no one else. The location is as much of a surprise as her realization that he is not at home. The tasteful, yet anonymous décor screams hotel room. Is he still on his honeymoon? Allura Day was weeks ago, surely not. But, even if he is, even at such a late hour, he seems bright and alert. Alarmed, even, when he takes in her panting, her wild expression.

“Pidge? What is it? What did I miss?” He moves his head as if that will allow him to see around her office better. “What happened to Lance?”

She opens her mouth to answer, but what comes out is, “Can I borrow your arm—and your brain?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intentionally mean to have chapters passing off from one Paladin POV to another, but here we are. 
> 
> Lance's accusation about Curtis may or may not be entirely a conspiracy theory developed on Twitter. I don't even know any more.
> 
> I hope this has been a respectful look at mental illness thus far. I have some intimate experience with it, but I know I'm not getting the details exactly right. There is a reason--I'm fallible, but also, others.


	5. Surely some revelation is at hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro knows from illness and the expectations of others around it. He's the right man in a crisis.

Shiro does not hesitate. Pidge’s comm lasted well into the time of night where it might more accurately be called morning. Some of it had gone over his head, but the importance of him coming as soon as possible was clear. She didn’t ask it of him; she didn’t have to. Shiro leaves the bathroom and starts packing.

Curtis sleeps through his whirlwind re-assembly of his things into his luggage, stirring only as, in a fit of pique he will not admit is related to his husband’s untroubled slumber, Shiro is progressively less quiet about his movements.

“Takashi?” Curtis mutters, squinting at his outline in the light coming from the bathroom. “Everything okay?”

Shiro pauses as he wedges his toothbrush case into a spare pocket. He considers his answer with care. Curtis is not, by nature, a suspicious person, but neither is Shiro a liar. Omission of details is necessary—he trusts Curtis to be understanding and discrete, but these secrets are not his to share. It is a difficult line to walk, sharing enough to justify his urgency and nothing specific all at once. Distraction, he decides, is his best option.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, walking around the bed to Curtis’ side and kissing his forehead. “That was Pidge. Something’s come up. I need to get back to Earth.”

Curtis peers blearily at him, at the time on clock beside him, and back again. Shiro watches his sluggish mental calculation of the hour and the time that has passed since he went to sleep. Concern shakes him more awake. “You’ve been on the comm with her this whole time?”

Shiro nods. “It’s something big, some research she needs me for.”

Curtis purses his lips, confused. “She needs you for—for research? Right _now_?”

“It’s a Paladin matter.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“No.”

“Shiro.” Not good. Now, Curtis is sitting up and turning on the light by his side of the bed. “Is this _really_ a crisis or are you looking for it to be one?”

“Please, don’t,” Shiro snaps. It’s late, he’s tired, he’s already stressed, and the last thing he needs is psychoanalysis about whether his reactions are justified. They are; he just can’t talk about why. “I wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t important.”

Curtis scans the room, his gaze lighting on Shiro’s mostly packed suitcase. “I can tell you feel that way.”

Shiro holds his breath, unsure of how to respond, unwilling to trust himself not to say something cutting that might make things worse. He should not be churlish about Curtis’ concerns when they are less over their change of plans and more for what appears, to him, to be Shiro stressing himself out about things he cannot control.

With a sigh, Curtis throws aside the blankets and crawls out of their spacious hotel bed. He does not speak, he just starts collecting his things. He packs with less efficiency than Shiro would like, but he _packs_ , so Shiro does not fixate on it. Marriage is about compromise, and he is getting what he wants, so Curtis is due the courtesy of not being hurried.

They do not speak much as they juggle their stuff, leaving the hotel, and arranging for transport back to Earth. Shiro curses himself for not flying them to Altea himself. He had wanted to—had wanted to leave Earth and show off to his husband in so doing. Curtis had argued that, as attractive as it would be to watch him pilot them out of atmo to kick off their honeymoon, there were ways he preferred occupying Shiro’s time and attention (and hands) to having them focused on operating a console. At the time, Shiro had agreed.

Now, the delay of a few vargas—minimal, thanks to his fame as a former Voltron Paladin and Coalition leader—provokes his temper and impatience. Curtis laces their fingers together and forces him not to steal a shuttle outright. When they finally board, Shiro paces until they leave the ground and then collapses into a seat next to his husband. Ten hours, tops, and he will be back on Earth and in Pidge’s lab. That might be time enough to sort himself out as regards the task at hand.

“Takashi,” Curtis says, lowly, when they are finally at the wormhole gate. “Please tell me what’s going on.” He sucks in a breath, then asks, “Is it Keith?”

Shiro snorts. “No.” This much, at least, he can reveal, if it will settle Curtis’ anxiety about this sudden change in plans. His mood sours when he sees Curtis sigh in relief and sink back into his seat. “Hey, what’s that about?”

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. Why are you happy this is not about Keith?” Shiro snaps, brows narrowing.

Curtis’ nose crinkles as though he finds Shiro’s tantrum amusing. “You and he are close. I am glad he’s okay because you’d be a wreck if he weren’t.”

It is such a kind, sweet, logical thing to say, and it robs his irritation of all its power. Curtis’ hand finds his again; he weaves their fingers together, and he kisses Shiro’s temple. “What, you thought I was jealous?”

Guilty as charged. Shiro ducks his chin to indicate that he resembles the remark. He is so fucking tired of having to explain his and Keith’s relationship to everybody. It is a welcome change that he does not have to do that with Curtis. He slumps against his husband, grateful.

“Do not mistake me, Takashi Shirogane,” Curtis whispers against his ear, his words harsh but his tone honeyed. “We are definitely going to talk about your priorities and this habit you have of leaping into crisis mode. “

“It is important,” he repeats, petulant.

“I trust that it is. You still need to work on how you respond to problems that upset you.”

Shiro sneers. “You sound _so much_ like your brother.”

Curtis preens. “Thank you.”

“That was not a compliment.”

Curtis hums, disagreeing without words so Shiro has no further opportunity for argument. Anyway, he doesn’t mean it. Dr. Alexander Bhaduri was half the reason they got together, Shiro’s sessions with him and his close relationship with his brother meant that Shiro’s mental health and dating life had overlapped immediately following the war. He likes Alexander, trusts him with even more secrets than he has had cause to share with Curtis just yet. In time, that balance will change. Curtis won’t ever be his therapist, but he’ll own as much of Shiro’s inner mind. That’s by design, with marriage. At least, Shiro is pretty sure it is. Curtis is right that he has a lot of work to do on his relationships and his expectations of and from them.

Thinking of Alexander, therapy, and relationships sets Shiro off fretting about Lance again. His thoughts diverge and circle back on each other. He should have known. Should he have known? Why did Pidge know, and he didn’t? Who else knew? Did _Keith_ know and he didn’t? Lance and he had talked a little bit about his mental health problems—about both of their respective issues—and shouldn’t that have been invitation enough to open up about everything? Was he embarrassed to say anything to someone he looked up to? Maybe it was new. Maybe it wasn’t. Did he give off the impression he wasn’t willing to be bothered?

“Takashi,” Curtis says, “you’re scowling. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Not really. But the cycle of recrimination strengthens his resolve. He allows himself to make mistakes as along as he learns from them. He is determined that he will do so.

“I will make things right,” he says, not an answer to Curtis’ question but a mission statement.

Whatever it takes.

****

What is takes is almost more than he can bear. Sleep deprivation, anxiety, anticipation of a fight he and Curtis are going to have—none of these are good things to have in combination with Pidge asking him to load himself onto an MRI gantry and sit still for hours. He is not strapped down, nor drugged, nor restrained, and it is still the longest, least pleasant experience Shiro can recall outside of war in a long time. He all but throws himself off the gantry when Pidge declares they are done.

“That’ll do for now,” Pidge’s voice rings out over the intercom as Shiro escapes the imaging chamber. Lance is seated on a stool just outside, leaning against the viewing window, half asleep. He startles when Shiro shakes his shoulder.

“Done already?” He checks the clock overhead as if he cannot believe the time that has passed.

Shiro can. He counted the seconds whenever he could think about anything other than answering Pidge’s questions. Two hours.

“Thankfully,” Shiro mumbles. “Pidge dishes out a lot of abuse for someone who hasn’t been in that coffin.” He tilts his head backward at the MRI.

“She has, she’s just little. She has more space than the rest of us.”

That is a surprise. It doesn’t soothe his nerves or slow his heart rate, but knowing that Pidge didn’t subject him to anything she wasn’t willing to do herself, staves off a full-blown panic attack.

“They’ll be at that while,” Lance says, squinting up at the bright holoscreens visible through the windows of Pidge’s office. Shiro can only just make out Pidge and Hunk around the images they’re scanning.

“She’s trying to be useful,” Shiro agrees, tugging a stool away from a laboratory bench to sit across from Lance. “It means she cares.”

Lance frowns at him. “I get it. I know she cares. I know you all do, I just—quiznak, I’m just so…” He leans his head against the window again, trails off without any intention to continue. He buries his hands in his jacket pockets, elbows rigid but the rest of his posture slouched.

Shiro recognizes that feeling, that heavy blend of frustration and weariness, and not just from recent experience.

“It’s exhausting being around healthy people, isn’t it?”

His insight surprises Lance, not least of all because his is earned—sympathy, not empathy. Lance opens one eye wider than the other, scans him up and down, assessing, probing for falsity in his words.

“You’re not crazy, Shiro.” His words could be dismissive, but his tone is interrogative. He wants more information but isn’t sure how to ask.

Shiro is glad to volunteer. “Depends on your definition. I have post-traumatic stress disorder. But that wasn’t what I meant.”

He gazes down at his right hand. Obligingly, the Altean fingers open and close into a fist on non-verbal command. He does the same with his left hand, marveling more that it responds to his will than his magic-assisted prosthetic. He sees Lance staring, uncomprehending, and he finds his words.

“I didn’t think I’d still be able to do this now,” he says, holding up his left arm, stretching and flexing it, testing every joint and muscle group, still amazed to find them all in working order.

“I have—had, I guess—Becker’s muscular dystrophy. By all rights, I should be in a wheelchair right now.”

“Shiro, no offense,” Lance deadpans, “but by all rights, you should be _dead_.”

Shiro throws his head back to laugh. Perspective. What a fabulous thing.

“You’re right. I guess I haven’t had enough time worrying about that. I worried for years about ending up debilitated and dying by degrees.”

“Is that what happens?” Lance is openly curious; his body appears wrung out, but his eyes are sharp, focused on Shiro’s arm, his human one.

Shiro nods. “I first noticed the signs when I was seventeen. My grip strength was getting worse despite the workouts I was doing. I thought I had overtaxed it.”

“No such luck, huh?”

“Nope,” Shiro says. He starts ticking off fingers. “I had bloodwork run, electrolyte supplementation, physical therapy. Things would help for a while, or I thought they did, and then they wouldn’t, and I’d have to start all over again.”

“With tests,” Lance says, sticking his tongue out in disgust.

“Exactly. Took forever for someone to do a gene scan and come up with a diagnosis. And then there were _more_ tests.” Shiro exhales roughly through his nose. “I was eighteen when they told me my entire body was going to basically fall apart before I was forty. It was—not great.”

He had been at the Garrison by then, his head full of the stars and his heart fixated on a fellow cadet. For an eighteen-year-old, being told—with certainty and an exact timeline—that he would no longer be hale and healthy, was as good as a death sentence.

“I may have acted out a little,” he says, winking at Lance, pleased to see his conspiratorial smile in return.

“Did you get an _A-minus_ on a term paper, Shiro?”

Shiro clicks his tongue at Lance, folds his arms over his chest feigning horror. “Please. Have I ever done anything halfway? I definitely got a B-plus.”

Lance busts out laughing, a loud and silly noise that dies off as he struggles to breathe around his giggles. He clutches his stomach, pained, as he gasps.

“Hey, don’t you make fun of me,” Shiro warns him. “That B-plus almost kept me off a flight to the moon.”

Whatever recovery Lance was working towards disappears entirely. He gapes at Shiro, equally annoyed and amused. “Oh—you were _serious_?”

More laughter, and this time, Shiro joins in. If his contribution to Pidge’s research is less about the MRI and more about evoking this response from Lance, then all the headache getting back to Earth will have been worth it.

Lance composes himself, wiping at his eyelids with one hand, the other still pressed against his belly. He looks over at Shiro and then, disconcertingly, just to his right, as if sharing mirth with someone else.

“A B-plus? Sheesh, now I know why I was only ever allowed to be a cargo pilot.” Self-deprecation colors his words, but Lance is still grinning. “You got better, though?”

Shaking his head, Shiro says, “No. I got worse. I almost got cut from the Kerberos mission.”

Worry creases Lance’s forehead. “Really? Because you were going to get sicker, like, decades later?”

“When other people’s lives depend on you, you aren’t allowed to be less than perfect.”

“Bullshit,” Lance hollers. “It was only a year-long mission.”

Shiro beams at him. He wishes they had been better friends then. Of all the people who knew he was sick and was gunning for Kerberos, only Sam Holt had been on Shiro’s side. Of course, Kerberos hadn’t turned out as planned. Perhaps remembering what had happened, Lance shrinks back into himself, tames his exuberance.

“I mean, it was supposed to be.”

Shiro grimaces. “It’s funny, isn’t it? If I hadn’t gone to Kerberos, I might have died—permanently.” He lets out a large breath, grips the fabric of his pants tight in his fists. “It’s kind of hard to know how to feel about that.”

He still doesn’t. Talking in his therapy sessions never really squared that circle. In exchange for a healthy body, he was tortured and forced to hurt and kill people for sport—his life prolonged because others were ended at his hands. The healthy body, too, only came after he died anyway, and, with it, memories of hurting the people he cared most about. Compared to that, his teenage angst about the slow deterioration of his body seems a paltry concern.

And yet, talking about it again, here and now, stokes his darkest, least rational fears. He doesn’t remember death, not the horror nor the peace of it. Keith remembers their time in the Black Lion, but all of that is gone for him. The terror of an uncertain future, where his legs and arms would betray him and derail his dream of flying among the stars— _that_ has survived the transition between life and death and the transfer of his consciousness between vessels.

“There are fates worse than death,” Shiro says, the best explanation he has.

Lance snorts. “You’re telling me.” He scratches his chest over his heart, then settles both hands in his lap again, flush against his stomach. They’re both quiet a moment, companionable in the silence of fellow sufferers. Then Lance whispers, expression hangdog as though he expects Shiro to yell, “I can’t believe I didn’t know you were sick when you were—” he stops himself from mentioning the Arena, Shiro suspects—“when we were Paladins. You didn’t look like you were.”

“It’s hard to tell,” Shiro replies, honest. He doesn’t remember feeling weak then either, but that might be just another legacy of trauma; in addition to the clone’s indistinct memories, he has shadowed versions of so many of his own. “I used my right hand for combat, for obvious reasons. Piloting the Black Lion wasn’t physically taxing so much as mentally.”

Lance drags a hand down his face and casts a withering gaze at him. “Shiro, only you could think forming Voltron wasn’t physically challenging.”

Shiro fights against blushing. “Anyway, I don’t appear to be sick any more, so I haven’t really brought it up since.” The trauma of both his life with the disease and the fact of how he has come to outlive it was not worth the airing outside of his therapy sessions. For the sake of commiseration and bonding, he allows this much: “There are very few people left alive who knew about my diagnosis.”

“Keith knows.”

It is not a question, but Shiro nods. “He overheard it being discussed once, and then I had to tell him.” At the risk of betraying a secret, he adds, “He got it wrong, too, if it makes you feel better.”

Lance raises an eyebrow. “Got what wrong?”

Shiro waves a hand in the vaguest direction of Pidge’s office, where she and Hunk are still poring over the data from their scans. “Being supportive. Chronic disease scares healthy people. They either want to wrap you in a protective bubble and prevent you from doing anything or—”

“Or they drag your friends halfway across the galaxy for an MRI that probably won’t make much of a difference in the long run?”

Shiro ignores the dejected tone of Lance’s words, focuses on the genuine feeling behind them. “Healthy people don’t have to wake up every day having to determine if they’re compromised or coping. Their point of reference is skewed. Reminding them of their own imperfect mortality and morbidity also makes them uncomfortable. So, they try to suppress things or fix them.”

Lance hugs himself around his waist. “Right? What is up with that? I’m always being told to try something else. A supplement, drug, exercise, and everything just makes me feel worse.”

“Some things—” Shiro struggles to find the right words, something honest without being defeatist or pessimistic. “Some things can’t be fixed, and you shouldn’t think about handling them from that perspective. Raging about it, about the unfairness of it, only makes you more tired. It’s unhealthy for you to linger on the false hope that things will go back to the way they were. Maybe it can be made better, and you should try to do what you can. But—”

“You have to make peace with the fact that some things stay broken,” Lance finishes. His hands are claws, now, digging into his abdomen. Hunk had mentioned Lance’s stomachaches and nausea, a consequence of medications made to fix things and a prime example of Shiro’s point.

“Not broken, but different,” Shiro challenges him lightly enough to make clear that he disagrees with the term, not with the sentiment. “Acceptance can make things even worse with healthy people. Because they think _you_ are broken and want to treat you like you are. That puts limits on you in a different way.”

And makes you want to test them, he does not add because that might just be him. That’s what the Garrison, what Adam and even Keith had gotten wrong about his illness. They saw how he was coping with it—coping, truly, not spiraling out of control and in denial—and decided that meant he was too sick. Too sick to function at the levels he knew he could. Too sick to know he was too sick for his dreams. Because not raging against what he couldn’t change was deemed less healthy than making peace with it. Yet when he was thrown into the Arena, another situation he couldn’t change, he _had_ raged. It was a difference of type. There, he could roll over and die or fight, and he _fought_.

“You have to pick your battles,” is all he adds. His personal trauma is not the focus here, despite the path they have carved with this conversation.

“So, I have to stay crazy,” Lance mopes.

Shiro shakes his head. “You will always have your diagnosis,” he says. “No matter what happens to you, no matter if you never have another episode—you will always know you are different in some fundamental way. What you can change is how you feel about that and how you let others make you feel.”

Shiro leans in to pat him gently on his knee. “You are not worth less to anybody because you happen to be sick, no matter how bad it gets. And your friends are here for you, no matter what.”

Lance stares at him, wondrous. “Wow. Uh, thanks Shiro. That’s nice to hear.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I hope I can—that I can get to where you are, some day.”

The confession of weakness breaks Shiro’s heart, a little. He throws every bit of his legendary determination into his words, says, “You can.”

“It’s not like it is with what you went through,” Lance demurs, scuffing his tennis shoes against the laboratory floor. “I don’t even have a trajectory for how this goes and when it’ll be worse or better. Things just seem to happen.”

“No one’s problems are exactly like any one else’s,” Shiro admits. “And it may not seem like it now, but you’ll work out your triggers and you will handle them. Things won’t necessarily change, at a base level, but you’ll get better with strategies in place to deal with flare ups.”

Lance opens his mouth to say…something. To argue, maybe, or whine, or confess. He doesn’t get past licking his lips before Pidge interrupts them on the intercom system.

“You guys want to come up here?”

Shiro slides off his stool, extends a hand to Lance. “Shall we?”

Lance shoves his hands back into his pockets. “Yeah, uh, just a tick, okay?”

He debates forcing the issue and decides that a show of trust is what’s called for. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready.”

Jogging to the stairs, Shiro brims with a bit of excitement, even relief. Maybe Curtis was right. Maybe this wasn’t a crisis that needed him to spend forty-eight more hours of his life without decent sleep. But he is glad he did, and he can defend that decision with the evidence of Lance’s smiles and laughter, if he receives permission to do so. He can be magnanimous, even; he won’t say ‘I told you so’ straight away when they talk about this.

“Shiro.”

He stops at the sound of his name and ducks down to look over the railing where he is halfway between floors.

Lance is still sitting on the stool, back turned to him, so Shiro cannot read his expression when he says, “Don’t do it.”

“Do what, Lance?”

Lance does not immediately answer. His head swivels on his neck as he sways in his seat. Shiro’s legs twitch, ready to dart back over to stop him from falling. He doesn’t, but it’s a near thing.

“Don’t make a decision you can’t take back. It’s not permanent, this thing with him.”

It’s the first cryptic statement Lance has made in the hours Shiro has been in the laboratory. Luckily, he is prepared. Pidge had sent him instructions that he had read en route to Earth, about how to speak to Lance when he wasn’t himself. Throughout his visit thus far, Shiro hadn’t had to rely on it. He wishes he could have asked Alexander if her guidelines represented good, ethical practice. They seemed reasonable: _you can ask him to explain, but don’t contradict him_. _Don’t ask too many questions at once. Don’t interrupt him but don’t let him go so long without you talking because you’ll startle him._

He clears his throat, declares his intention to speak before he does it. “What isn’t permanent, Lance?”

“You and the…the man.”

“Which man?” He frantically tries to think which male-presenting person Lance might mean. They have many male acquaintances in common.

“Your man.” Lance turns his head to the side, enough that Shiro can see a grimace on Lance’s lips.

“You mean Curtis?”

“Whatever his name is. It’s not important.” He turns his head again, says, so quiet Shiro can hardly hear, “It changes.” Louder, he says, “He’s not permanent.”

Anger bubbles up from Shiro’s gut, same as it had when he thought Curtis was jealous of Keith. He drags his thumb over the gold band on his left ring finger. He inhales, sharply, ready to defend his husband, then remembers Pidge’s instructions and bites down, hard, on the inside of his cheek to keep silent.

If Lance is aware of his struggle, he shows no signs. He hops off his stool, shuffles toward the stairwell, and shoulders by Shiro. His eyes stay on the ground, but there is a hint of pink in his cheeks. It mollifies Shiro’s anger that Lance is at least embarrassed by his behavior, given the subject. Pidge has described this process, too, in her notes. _Don’t stop him if he leaves. Drop the subject if it bothers you. Whatever you do, don’t say you’re sorry. If he says it, accept it._

Shiro waits. He does not get an apology. Lance keeps walking. In profile, his expression is neutral, but it becomes stormy as he crosses the threshold into Pidge’s office. He stops with one foot in front of him, heel on the ground but toes angled upward in mid-step.

“Don’t adopt kids with him,” Lance says. Then he disappears through the doorway.

Not until the physical burn from lack of oxygen squeezes his chest does Shiro remember to breathe. Distantly, he can hear Pidge’s voice, hear her pleading and cajoling to, apparently, no effect. There is the slamming of a door, voices hissing back and forth. Then there are light, but purposeful footsteps approaching him. On instinct, Shiro braces for impact.

Pidge flies out of her office, arms stiff and hands fisted at her sides. “What did you say to him?”

Shiro has no idea.

Likewise, he has no idea where Lance would have heard about plans to adopt kids with his husband. Certainly not from him, and, if not him, _definitely_ not Curtis. They had talked about it, agreed that that was on the agenda for them both, but they had agreed to wait. Maybe get a cat first, see how bad they were at taking care of something that mostly took care of itself. If that worked out, then, maybe— _maybe_ —a dog.

Seeing his confusion, Pidge’s accusatory tone changes to one of desperate curiosity. “Okay, what did _he_ say then?”

Shiro shakes himself bodily to snap out of his confusion. He croaks, “Something about me and Curtis adopting kids?”

Pidge sags against the wall, blows out a breath. “Is that all? Okay. That’s normal.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, he said something to Hunk about adopting kids, too. It’s a fixation he has. Don’t worry about it. Come in and see your scans!” She beckons, not waiting for him to follow. “I don’t know how to interpret the differences between commands to your left versus your right hands yet, but there’s this Altean doctor that I’ve been comming with who—"

Very little of what gets said after that penetrates in any lasting way with Shiro. Hunk supplies a few metaphors that bring him closer to understanding, but not near enough to keep up with either of them. What he knows is that Pidge is grateful that he came, that she is excited about her data, and that they should feel hopeful about what they can learn from her diagnostics. By the time she lets him leave, although it is many hours later, her enthusiasm remains unaltered.

Later that night, despite only have the energy to do the bare minimum and brush his teeth before falling into bed with Curtis, Shiro’s mind races. Curtis had taken one look at him and charitably postponed their much-needed discussion. But he isn’t asleep either, probably because Shiro is thinking too loud.

“Shiro, I’m not mad,” Curtis murmurs, “but you are getting banished to the couch if you don’t settle.”

Shiro starts to apologize, but what comes out is, “Did you tell anyone we wanted to adopt kids?”

Curtis groans. “We haven’t even decided that we will yet. Why would I tell anybody?”

“Nobody? You didn’t mention it to Alexander?” Despite Pidge’s dismissal, Shiro hasn’t been able to shake the paranoid feeling that Lance was privy to something intimate that he should not have been. The odds of Alexander and Lance crossing paths, given Lance’s extensive outreach, are slim but non-zero. It is the only possibility he can come up with.

“No way,” Curtis spits back. “He’d tell my mother. Then she’d be…involved.” When Shiro says nothing, Curtis elbows him. “That was a joke.”

On autopilot, only half-listening, Shiro says, “I don’t mind if she’s involved.”

Curtis grunts. “You will once she _gets_ involved. Trust me. Dogs are better. Less permanent attachment means less mother-in-law attachment.”

Shiro freezes.

Curtis, assuming the discussion is done, happy that Shiro is no longer thinking at one hundred decibels, promptly falls asleep with a mumbled, “love you.”

 _It’s not permanent_.

As he had recounted earlier today, Shiro knows his track record for responsible behavior is poor when it comes to people telling him what is in his best interest. His decisions can be hasty, to put it mildly, when challenged. He knows he should stay in bed, catch up on sleep, or, if not, do something productive like exercise, meditate, or, at the very least, jerk off.

Instead, he slips out of bed once Curtis is snoring and heads for the study. The hour is not decent, but he dials in a comm address any way. He has a couple of calls to make.

Lance picks up after one trill of the connection. “Shiro? Oh, hey.”

Forcing down bile that feels like it’s crawling up his throat, Shiro responds coolly, “Hey. How are you feeling after today?”

Lance’s expression is dreamy, his eyes a bit vacant and his smile inane, but in a good way. A contented, untroubled way. “Really good, thanks.” He continues, “I don’t know if I thanked you for today.” He flashes all his teeth in a dazzling smile. “Then again, I could have thanked three versions of you that aren’t real between then and now and how would I know?”

Unease, concern, indignation—all are forgotten as Shiro chuckles despite himself.

“Thank you again!” Lance exclaims, then claps a hand over his mouth. He whispers when he speaks next. “Sorry, I know it’s late. But thanks for laughing. Everyone is so _serious_ about this all the time.” He chews his lip when Shiro doesn’t respond immediately. “We’re good, right?”

“Yeah, I—uh, you said some things today, but—”

“Were they weird?” Lance moans, leaning his head into one hand. Then he yelps, looks suspiciously around Shiro, lowers his voice to barely more than a breath. “They weren’t about Keith, were they?”

“What? Keith? No, I—”

“Oh good. I really offended him when I said stuff about you at your wedding.”

 _At his wedding_? Shiro’s already unsteady mood spirals further out of his firm control. Kids and Keith: two things his brain cannot tolerate in a Venn Diagram of Lance’s delusions of at this hour—let alone with as little sleep as he’s had and when he has another comm to make.

Lance waves his arms crossing them over each other. “Don’t worry! I didn’t mean it! Whatever I said, it was probably for the other Shiros.” He waggles his eyebrows for all of one tick. Then his mouth drops open in utter horror. “Oh, _damn it_ why did I say ‘other Shiros’—”

Lance disappears entirely from the comm viewscreen. A rhythmic thudding, presumably from his forehead meeting a hard surface, fills the silence before he peers around the edge of the feed.

“Shiro, if you want to hit me for whatever I said, I only ask that it be a clear shot to my head, okay? Nothing up there you can break worse than it is already.”

“ _Lance_ ,” Shiro hisses, “Take it easy. I’m not going to hit you.”

“Ohhhhhhh, okay,” Lance says, and then he slides back into his seat, fully into view.

The questions that prompted this call die on Shiro’s lips as he takes in his friend. He seems buoyant, relaxed, at peace.

“You’re looking better,” he says. “It’s nice to see.”

“I feel better,” Lance admits. “I don’t know why, but I do.” He pats his belly. “I might even be able to keep dinner down tonight. Maybe it’s not the meds. Maybe it’s been me worrying about being crazy that’s been making me feel sick.”

Maybe. “Stress is bad for you. You should avoid it.”

Lance holds up his thumb to his ear, folds all his other fingers aside from his pinkie, which he places near his mouth. “Uh, hello, yes, I’m trying to reach Mr. Pot. This is Kettle? Yes, I’ll hold.” He hums musak just long enough for Shiro to crack.

“All right, enough,” Shiro scolds. “Go to bed why don’t you?”

Lance waves. “Thanks for checking on me.”

“Any time.”

Shiro is about to disconnect the comm when Lance says, “You don’t have to worry, okay?”

“I worry,” Shiro shrugs. He can’t help it. “I’ll talk to you soon?” He is loath to insist, but for his own peace of mind, he wants to set the expectation—for himself and for Lance—that regular communication will now be the norm.

“Sure. Night, Shiro.”

Shiro disconnects the comm, takes a deep breath, and punches in another address before he can talk himself out of it. If someone is going to update Keith on current events, it makes sense that it’s him. Pidge and Hunk are sorting through the data; he can do this legwork.

But Keith doesn’t activate his comm. Shiro leaves a vague message with a firm request to get pinged back and leaves the matter there. Just this once, he’ll take his husband’s advice and not push at too much, too fast, too hard.

This time when Shiro crawls into bed, he’s dropping into sleep before he can appreciate the comfort of being in his own bed, beside the radiant warmth of a familiar body. Worries attempt to hold firm to his slipping consciousness; words like _permanent_ and _kids_ and _Keith_ float around, begging for his attention. He shoves it all away. Things are going to be all right.

  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Damn it, I had to give character to Cardboard. I chose to make him a reasonable, nice person because it hurts me to consider, whatever the ill judgement of marrying him, that Shiro would fall for an asshole. I also prefer to find cracks in their relationship that aren’t only jealousy-based. Tired of that trope.
> 
> 2) Becker’s muscular dystrophy best fits the profile of nebulous illness the VLD showrunners gave Shiro. It’s predominantly men who have it (X-linked disease), typically presents signs in late teens to early twenties, and men affected with it typically lose the ability to walk in the their 20s and 30s. It also can cause heart disease, severe enough to end life early (40-50s). That’s a bit longer than fanon has Shiro surviving, but it fits otherwise. You can learn more about it here: https://www.mda.org/disease/becker-muscular-dystrophy
> 
> 3) As always, I welcome comments, especially criticisms on my portrayals of mental illness. It is very important that I get this right, even in a story with magical space robot kitties. Shiro is a great foil for Lance in this regard because I think, in the years where he has time, that he would have made the effort to sort his mental health issues out, but not be “fixed.” I hate that idea—fixing and broken—as evidenced by Shiro’s words in this chapter.
> 
> 4) Everything is not going to be all right, friends. Fair warning.


	6. anarchy is loosed upon the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is summoned from far afield to deal with an emergency. There are more people in jeopardy than just Lance, but none of them are dealing with their shit half as well as the guy who hears voices.

Keith takes several jumps with Kosmo, two wormholes and ten hours of flying to answer this summons, mostly because he is certain there has been a large mistake made. Or a terrible prank has been played on him. Admittedly, traveling so far for a hoax is probably not the best way to diminish the likelihood of such hijinks being repeated, but he is less nervous about that that the other explanation: that this is _not_ a mistake.

He gets to Gateway Central Hospital, checks in the with friendly Olkari staffing the in-patient psychiatric ward, and his worst fear is realized when she summons an orderly without delay. The orderly is human, but he fits more neatly into the dimensions of a Galra than Keith does. He relays instructions, collects every loose possession Keith has on his person, even the knife he keeps in his boot—out of habit more than need these days. He is impressed.

“Don’t be,” the orderly says. “We see it all here.”

His detachment is professional, unnerving, and unerring. He affixes a magnetic badge to Keith’s shirt then beckons him to follow. The badge permits passage through several electronic security barriers. They do not speak until, after half a dozen hallways later, the orderly stops at a door.

“You will be on camera the entire time.”

“What is going on here?”

“Your friend is on suicide watch twenty-four-seven until we figure out what he OD’d on.”

Keith’s stomach falls to somewhere by his feet. It’s tempting to snarl at this man who can be so blasé about his friend dying, but he respects the need for such emotional distance. He’s taken advantage of it himself on many a Blade mission to a planetoid devastated by too many years of occupation and not enough time to heal. The orderly falls back a step so Keith may have the illusion of privacy as he enters the door. The door, it is understood, will not be closed.

The room on the other side is small, and sunlight, a few hours later than would be direct, softly illuminates the space. The entire contents of the room are a bed, a chair next to it, a toilet closer to the door than either of the other things, and a person. Everything, except the person’s skin, is white, but even that is not as dark as it should be. Keith isn’t certain if it’s the surroundings or if he really is that pale.

Lance does not turn around as Keith enters, but he stiffens. “I didn’t think they’d actually call you.”

“I sort of figured that was the idea,” Keith replies. He crosses the room not to sit but to lean against the windowsill.

Lance has his knees tucked against his chest, his arms around them. He wears a uniform not dissimilar to that of the orderly still glowering at them from the doorway. The orderly’s trousers are held up by drawstring, but elastic clings to Lance’s narrow waist. The orderly has a badge over his breast. Lance has a patient ID number printed on it. He wears a metal monitoring bracelet on his wrist but no shoes.

“I was on Drule,” Keith continues. “Pretty hard to reach. I guess you knew that.”

Shiro, he assumes, would have told him about Keith’s latest mission and its location. Keith had gotten a message from Shiro in a brief burst of comm reception between solar flares. After listening to it, he had made plans to return to Earth within a few weeks. The priority alert he got in the subsequent communication burst only a couple of days later pushed up the timeline. He isn’t certain if any of the other Paladins had gotten his warning about it. He hadn’t waited. He had clung to Kosmo and jumped.

Lance sighs, drops his chin atop his knees. “I thought they would have let me out before you got here.”

“Is that what you needed? More time to get your story straight?”

He doesn’t mean to sound so accusatory, but every loyal and good feeling he has ever had just comes out aggressive. If this offends Lance, he doesn’t let on.

“It’s all a big mistake.”

“Okay,” Keith says, spreading his arms open wide, an invitation. “Convince me.”

Lance’s eyes flash with acknowledgment of the challenge and he lifts his head. “Come _on_ , Keith. You know me. I’m _not_ the type of person who would—”

“Don’t finish that sentence unless you want me to hit you.”

“But I’m _not_ —”

“Nobody is until they are,” Keith hisses. “Don’t say that it couldn’t have been you. It can happen to anyone.”

“Fine,” Lance concedes, “maybe when I was feeling bad.” He trails off, but seeing Keith’s raised eyebrow, he pleads, “But not recently! I’ve been feeling better!” He waves one arm towards the door. “I haven’t done anything to hurt myself since I’ve been here. Ask him! Ask any of them. And I haven’t been _that_ crazy, even.”

Keith lets out a huff of air that flips his bangs out of his eyes. “You gave the hospital my name as your emergency medical contact and you told them we were married. That’s not crazy?”

Lance rolls his eyes. “I did that so that they didn’t call my parents. I know we’re not married.” Muttering under his breath, he adds something that sounds like, “most of the time.”

Undaunted and undistracted, Keith shoots back, “So you admit that you were trying to keep this trip to the hospital secret from your family? The other Paladins?”

Lance’s jaw drops, works to pick itself up and fails. Caught out, all he can do is pout. “Because they would assume it was true.”

“Assume what was true?” No longer pretending, Keith provokes him. “What would they assume is true, Lance?”

“That I tried to kill myself!”

The room is too small for an echo, but the words linger without it. Lance, much to Keith’s horror, starts crying.

“I swear, I didn’t,” Lance mewls, rubbing his face at the fabric covering his legs. It’s subtle, but his whole body trembles with sobs he only just controls. “It’s a mistake.” His reddened eyes seek out Keith’s again. “You have to believe me.”

“I want to.” He does not say that he isn’t sure he can, or why, but he doesn’t have to. The gauntlet is thrown.

Lance picks it up, slowly. “Look, I get—I get why you might think I’m—why I’d do something like that. I get it.” He sizes Keith up and down, sighs again. “Shiro told you about my illness, right?”

Keith nods. He allows some hurt to creep into his voice. “I wish _you_ had told me.”

Lance swallows thickly. “I tried.” He drops his gaze to his feet, plucks at his toes. “I almost told you at Shiro’s wedding, but it was new. I was still working out what it meant.” He looks up through his hair at Keith. “And you were already kinda sad. I didn’t want to make it worse.”

Keith opens his mouth to object, but Lance talks over him. “Don’t deny it. I am having a hard enough time sorting out what’s real or not without you lying to me.”

Keith snaps his mouth closed, frowns. This conversation won’t work if they’re both in denial. But his denials aren’t the same as Lance’s, not of type or severity. He opts for honesty.

“I was a bit sad,” he says after a tick. “Mostly because I felt like I was losing my best friend. Or like he was leaving me behind. But that was stupid. Shiro and I are still friends.”

This appeases Lance somewhat; the corner of his mouth curls upward, hopeful. “You are never going to lose Shiro, Keith.”

“I know that. I just don’t always do well with change.”

“Wow,” Lance whistles, “that must have hurt.”

It had. Self-reflection never served Keith very well. He skated by on confidence. If he stopped to re-examine his behavior and the reasons for it, he might never stop screaming. He elects to ignore the irony of insisting on as much from Lance.

“Well,” he says, “Now what?”

Lance smirks. “You’re supposed to be getting me to confess what I took, right?”

Keith raises an eyebrow at Lance. That is, more or less, exactly what the orderly hinted he should do. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me?”

“I could make something up,” Lance offers, eyebrows narrowing. “I didn’t take anything.” He turns his whole body away from Keith. “Not that anyone believes me.”

Belief wouldn’t be a bad strategy, but it would feed into Lance’s delusion. Deciding that that is someone else’s problem, Keith launches ahead. “Okay, so tell me what actually happened.”

Lance tosses him a glare over his shoulder. Keith does not flinch. Confrontation might be all he knows, and that may or may not be healthy, but it also means he does it better than anyone. And there is just enough of old rivalry there to instigate a conversation that needs to happen.

“I don’t know.”

Keith huffs. “Then who does?”

Lance waves him off. “Nobody. It’s not a delusion or a cry for help, okay? I just passed out when I was on my way to see Pidge and I woke up in the padded room.”

The room is not actually padded, though anything that might have a corner has a curve, Keith notes. And there are no strings or sharp objects anywhere. There isn’t even a toothbrush or even all that much water in the toilet. There also isn’t any evidence of mess, or struggle, that Keith can discern. Lance was never known for keeping his side of the Castle of Lions spotless. He must be on his best behavior here, and that’s enough to improve Keith’s mood and raise his low expectations.

“That’s it?” He says, lightly.

“That’s it,” Lance insists. He snaps his fingers in the direction of the orderly. “The vampires have taken my blood. Check with them. You’ll see. Nothing in my system.”

Keith cocks his head to the side. “What about your meds?”

“Not taking them,” Lance grumbles. “They were making me sick and they weren’t making me less crazy.”

“Not taking your meds isn’t a good way to prove you’re not crazy,” Keith counters.

“I never said I wasn’t.”

That much is true. Niggling doubt worms its way into Keith’s gut. Lance has not denied anything about his current condition other than being the one responsible for it. If he were a good liar—and Keith knows from experience he isn’t—that sort of tactic would be brilliant. Sprinkling just enough truth to cover up a lie. But he’s _not_ a good liar and he sounds like he’s telling the truth. However, if he had been out of his mind at the time of the suicide attempt, maybe he wouldn’t know. His denial could be honest but not factual.

That was for doctors to work out. Keith wasn’t here to do their work for them. He can only work with the information he has.

“Have you fainted a lot?”

Lance thinks about it, then shakes his head. “I never passed out before.”

His voice is small, and he clutches his knees again, fingers tight in the fabric of his scrub pants. His mien of defiance wilts. He’s _scared_. It’s not a new look for Lance, which is why Keith recognizes it. He was mad about being mistaken as suicidal and indifferent about being insane. But losing consciousness, rightly, frightens him. Keith has been the edge of consciousness too many times to find fault in this reaction; it’s reasonable to fear tumbling off that thin edge of awareness into nothing. As far as he can recall, the only times Lance would have been familiar with that feeling were when he nearly died. Understandable fear, eminently.

Keith pushes off the wall and eases onto the bed next to Lance, tucking one foot under his opposite knee. Lance shifts so they sit, shoulder-to-shoulder. Keith long ago mastered the art of the silent treatment; only Shiro had ever been able to wait him out. And Lance is no Shiro.

“I’ve been a bit more tired lately,” Lance confesses. “It’s sort of a rebound effect from going cold turkey on the drugs. I mean, that’s what I thought.”

“You think you passed out because you were tired?”

Lance shrugs, his shoulder moving along Keith’s. “Dunno. I’ve been tired since I figured out I was depressed. This is different. It’s not quite tired, more light-headed, I guess.” He kicks at the air, pointing a sock-covered toe at the window. “My head doesn’t hurt as much as it used to, but it feels quieter, too.”

 “That’s…good?” Right? It must be good that his friend is having fewer delusions rather than more.

“I don’t know. Everything feels slow, though. Like, I know it will happen and I have to wait for it, and even when it’s happening, I’m bored because I know where it’s going. You know?”

Keith really doesn’t. His lack of response does not seem to matter. Lance falls into him, leaning his head against his shoulder. On instinct, Keith snakes an arm out to hold him. His hand spans most of Lance’s upper arm. The skin under his hand feels fuzzy, like apricot rind. It’s also colder than it should be.

Lance mumbles, hazily, “I feel like I’ve had this conversation with you already. Like I know how it ends.”

“You want to tell me? Because I’m so lost.”

Lance sniffles. “You leave. You still think I tried to off myself.” Lance withdraws from Keith’s embrace, slides down the bed to lay on his side against the pillow. He shoves his hands under the anemic bit of fluff to prop his head up better. “Which is ridiculous because you’re the suicidal one.”

“Am not,” Keith fires back, unable to stop himself.

A grin steals over Lance’s lips as he closes his eyes. “Liar.” Keith holds his tongue, and Lance settles more firmly against his flat pillow. “Did you ever tell Shiro?”

“Tell him what?”

“About Naxzela. Or the cloning facility. Or that time you almost stepped off the roof of the Garrison after the Kerberos mission report came back?”

The sole comfort Keith has in the moment is that Lance’s eyes are closed, so he cannot see the color drain from Keith’s face or his mouth fall open. Naxzela—others had been there, someone might have said something. And Shiro, who knew what Shiro knew about the fight that he and the clone had had? What might he had said to Lance? Probably nothing. Probably. He hadn’t even mentioned it to Keith. But it was possible.

The Garrison roof, on the other hand… Keith tugs at his collar, choking for air. He stumbles, falling off the bed, catching himself on the nearby windowsill. He rounds on the bed, heart beating wildly at the back of his throat.

“Lance?”

Lance’s chest rises and falls deeply, his entire face is slack. His hair has grown longer, and wisps of brown lay over the Altean marks on his cheek. Thus obscured, he seems more human. Tucked in against himself, he seems smaller, more fragile, too.

“Time to go,” the orderly calls from the door, entering to fetch Keith when he stands rooted in place. He plants his feet. He needs answers, and he plans to shake Lance until they and all his other delusions fall out of his head. The orderly has a foot and fifty pounds on Keith, but Keith is part Galra and if he doesn’t want to move, no power in the universe can make him.

Inadvisably, the orderly tries. Keith throws out a hand. Where, in former days, a bayard might have materialized, something much larger and softer does instead. Large and in charge the orderly might be, he is not prepared for a wolf that occupies half the space of the room to suddenly appear then vanish three times in succession. One, to get Keith out of the orderly’s grip. Two, to reappear them both on the other side of Lance’s bed. And, three, to take Keith _and_ Lance out of the room entirely.

It is not a good plan.

****

The others reaffirm as much several vargas after he, Lance, and Kosmo teleport into Pidge’s laboratory. They had jumped directly from the hospital, a distance of miles; Kosmo’s range was ever increasing. They had also apparently jumped directly into some sort of special experimental room and set off every alarm and protective counter measure in so doing. By the time Lance—who never woke through sirens or sprays of fire-suppressing foam—is resettled onto a cot in Pidge’s office, everyone is good and pissed at Keith.

“Directly into the magnet! The damage you could have done!” That’s Pidge.

“Irresponsible to move someone who isn’t stable from a hospital—" That’s Shiro, of course.

“My ears are still ringing…” That’s Hunk.

Keith takes their fuss and furor for the diversion it is. They only all started panicking _after_ he told them about where he had come from. He lets them work it out. Pidge paces, Hunk whimpers, Shiro grumbles.

“I don’t know that you should have told us,” Shiro scolds, gently, officially notating that Keith had violated Lance’s privacy. He knows Shiro well enough to know that that is all it is—a token nod to decorum, etcetera. No one regrets that Keith told them, not even Shiro.

“I can’t believe Lance tried to—to—” Hunk cannot finish. He starts sobbing and throws his arms around Pidge when her perambulations bring her too close. She struggles at first, but she settles quickly.

“He doesn’t seem the type,” she says, hugging him back.

Keith sneers, ready to snap, but Shiro beats him to it. “Don’t be so sure.”

Then all eyes are on Shiro, Keith’s included. Shiro looks back at him. His jaw is tensed, as though he grinds his teeth, but his eyes and mouth are relaxed. His hair might have been gray for years, but this is the first time Keith can remember thinking Shiro looked _old_. Not old, not really. Aged, wise in experience and misery.

“Shiro,” he chokes out the syllables, wanting to confirm or comfort, Keith isn’t sure.

Shiro nods. “I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but, yes.”

Of course, none of them can let it rest at that and none of them want to press the issue either. And, of course, because it’s Shiro, he anticipates that and gives of himself, even though the set of his shoulders is stiff with discomfort.

“Anyone who can honestly say they’ve never contemplated suicide is either lying or has lived the kind of charmed life I cannot even imagine,” Shiro says. Deftly, he redirects, “And it’s not for any of us to judge.”

Pidge sniffles, dislodging her glasses as she wipes at her eyes. “No. It isn’t. I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to imply—” She looks pleadingly at Hunk.

Hunk fills in the rest. “It’s just that he was doing better. I mean, he seemed like he was happy.”

Shiro’s smile is soft-coated steel. “That’s usually when attempts happen, guys.”

Keith squirms, unable to stay silent. “I don’t think he did.”

He cannot immediately justify the feeling, but saying it out loud, he realizes he _believes_ Lance, believes what Lance told him at the hospital. He has survived for far too long trusting his gut to doubt it now. He fishes for something to justify the feeling. Shiro might trust Keith’s instinct, but Pidge and Hunk are data-driven.

“The hospital pulled blood from him. If he’d taken anything, wouldn’t it show up there?”

Pidge hops out of Hunk’s arms to reach the terminal on her laboratory bench, tossing a glance over her shoulder at Shiro. Shiro shrugs and nods. He made his token objection; she is free to find the answer for them all. As ever, it takes an absurdly short amount of time for her to steal information from supposedly secure servers.

“Toxicology report is clean.” She mouths around some long words that Keith can relate to the physical picture—malnourishment, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances—and some that he can’t.

“What’s ‘leukocytosis’?”

Pidge scans the term in a medical dictionary. “Elevated white blood cell count. Like with an infection.”

Hunk hums thoughtfully. “We thought he might have meningeal inflammation. Maybe he does.”

Pidge shoots back, “We’d need a CSF tap to confirm that, and his MRI scan didn’t indicate any flare.”

“Lance said he passed out,” Keith supplies, not certain what any of those acronyms mean. “Would that fit with what you’re talking about?”

Pidge nods, then shakes her head. “Well, I guess it depends? He’d be showing other signs if he had meningitis.” She gulps. “He’d also be dead by now.”

“Maybe it’s from not eating, then.”

Everyone looks at him. Keith rolls his eyes. “I cannot be the only one who noticed he’s skin-on-bone these days. He’s even got that hair—” He closes his eyes, recalling the feel of the peach fuzz he felt on Lance’s arm.

“Lanugo,” Pidge supplies, pulling the word out from Lance’s hospital physical. “It’s a type of hair growth people with severe malnourishment grow.”

“Like anorexics?”

Pidge blinks at him. “Y-yeah, how did you know that?”

Keith shifts, does not meet her gaze. “I knew people like that. In…in the homes.”

He suppresses a shiver. He never watched any of them waste away to the degree that Lance has, but it was close. Mostly, that was because he was always being moved around. He thinks back on one girl he knew, the one with the defiant smile and sad brown eyes, the only one who was moved on before Keith was. She had hurt herself in other ways, and she had never hidden any of it. No one had cared. Keith hadn’t known what it was at the time. All he knew is she was there one day and gone the next. He assumed it had been the system, rearranging kids like inconvenient garden weeds. What if it hadn’t? He didn’t even know her name, so he would never know.

“Keith,” Shiro murmurs, no less affected than Keith had been at his own confession.

Keith shakes his head, not willing to go into more detail. And hasn’t that always been the difference between him and Shiro? Shiro bleeds his trauma out; Keith bricks his up. God, if Shiro knew about Naxzela and the rest of it…

Hunk clears his throat. “So there’s one thing I don’t get.”

“One thing?” Pidge asks.

“Which is the inciting problem? Is he not eating and getting sick or is he sick so he’s not eating?”

Pidge taps a finger to her lips. “Anorexia can be secondary to catatonia, which is sometimes how schizophrenia progresses.” She blanches. “That can be fatal.”

Hunk gasps, but before any of them can get carried away, Shiro calls for calm. “Slow down, Pidge. You have to explain it to us.”

“Malignant catatonia,” she recites, as though she is recalling something she read word-for-word; likely she is. “It’s basically end-stage, unmanaged, severe catatonia.”

Just so he’s clear, Keith asks, “Catatonic, like, not responsive?”

She nods. “People with schizophrenia can go into catatonic states. They won’t move or react. If that goes on for long enough, if they don’t drink or eat? They can die.”

“Lance is plenty reactive,” Keith counters. Or, rather, he was. He’s also been asleep for vargas despite the rude arrival into Pidge’s laboratory.

“It’s not always stuporous,” Pidge explains. She has researched this better than any of them, because of course she has. “Sometimes they get manic—catatonic excitement—instead.”

That sits uncomfortably close to Lance’s behavior in Keith’s experience, and, from the drawn faces of his friends, theirs as well.

Shiro grunts, his expression clouded. “Pidge, I’m glad you’ve looked into this, but Lance should be in the hospital if it’s that serious.”

The reprimand is for him, Keith understands, but Pidge is the one to object.

“Give me a few vargas. I can get things set up here.”

“No,” Shiro demands, not quite stamping his foot but doing all but. He towers over her, forearms folded across his chest. “Pidge, if there’s a medical problem, you are not a doctor. You can give all your findings to one and annoy the crap out of them if Lance lets you. But Lance should go back to the hospital.”

Pidge juts her chin out, and Keith wouldn’t be surprised, if, after today, she went out and got a medical degree out of spite. For now, she settles for undermining Shiro’s appeal to authority in a different direction.

“I think that’s up to _Lance_ , Shiro.”

Keith stifles a giggle at the poleaxed expression on Shiro’s face. He’d been too long away from the others in any commanding capacity, and, in the interim, they had all grown even more willful than they had been as Paladins. Unlike Keith, Shiro hadn’t had to figure out how to work with them and cajole them into making decisions as an equal partner because he never really had been on their level. He was Shiro, the legend, the hero, the leader. They were absolutely a team in Shiro’s head, but outside of Shiro’s head? They were _his_ team in a way that they had never belonged to Keith when he was Black Paladin.

Keith wishes he could observe Shiro’s crash course in negotiation with Pidge under other circumstances, but he finds he still enjoys it.

More, she’s daring him to go back on his earlier platitudes. Shiro talked a good game about respecting Lance’s choices, about him not being broken just different—and _quiznak_ , Keith wants to call him on that bit of projection—so he cannot now insist that Lance doesn’t know well enough to be consulted on this matter. Shiro glances at Keith, gray eyes begging for backup. Keith shakes his head: _you’re on your own with this. Good luck._

Ever the diplomat, Hunk breaks the silent battle of wills with a compromise. “How about we keep Lance here until he wakes up and then we ask him? We can tell him what Pidge knows and we can watch to make sure he eats and drinks enough, and if he wants to go, we’ll take him back.”

Proving that diplomacy does not rule out coercion, he adds, “And we’ll get Veronica involved if we need to get him to cooperate.”

Pidge, still resolute despite Shiro’s direct disapproval, shivers. “Agreed,” she squeaks.

“Agreed,” Keith confirms, biting his lower lip to keep from smiling at Shiro’s frown.

Hunk waits, expectant, until Shiro sighs, staring up at the ceiling as though to beg heaven for deliverance.

“I don’t like it,” Shiro says, finally. He glares down at Pidge. “This malignant catatonia—if you see any signs, he goes to the hospital. That’s an emergency, not a question of sanity or lack thereof.” Under his breath, he mutters, “Although I’m starting to question my own agreeing to this.”

“Agreed?” Pidge purrs at him, her smirk taking over her whole face.

“Agreed,” Shiro says.

He retains some of his old authority, or must do, because Pidge and Hunk spring to action once he concedes. Hunk has meal plans falling out of his mouth, and Pidge describes with certainty a means to obtain sterile intravenous fluids and catheters should the need arise. Keith tunes them out as to specifics but absorbs enough of the flavor of the words to be even more certain that Pidge is on her way to a medical doctorate as a dare. They escape the laboratory, still plotting.

And then Keith and Shiro are alone. It’s…been a while. A few months ago, they were comming each other every few hours arranging things for the wedding. Since then, it’s been quieter—Shiro had a new life to arrange and plan for, and Keith had his missions. Figures it would take literal life-and-death situation to bring them back into each other’s orbit.

Shiro must be thinking along the same lines. He’s fighting an embarrassed smile, while the tips of his ears betray him, turning a ruddy shade of pink.

“So this is what it takes to get the gang back together again.”

“Crisis?” Keith shrugs and leans one shoulder against the wall. “Doesn’t it usually?”

Shiro chuckles mirthlessly. “It wasn’t supposed to. The war’s over. The only crisis I’m supposed to have these days is over my golf handicap.”

Keith cringes. “You _golf_?”

Shiro sighs, weighs the sound down with exaggerated melodrama. “Curtis does. He’s been insisting I join him since I’m retired and I have nothing better to do.”

Keith chews on his lower lip. Everything else on offer in conversation thus far is too personal, but this might just fall in the right zone of personal enough. He pitches his tone somewhere between concerned and mocking.

“I can’t believe you _retired_. You. Retired.”

“Me,” Shiro admits, rubbing his neck and stretching out his upper back muscles. “I thought it might be nice to make a clean break of it. You were right—the politics weren’t for me.”

Keith perks up at the words _you were right_ because, of course he was. But he does not let himself get side-tracked.

“But flying, teaching, leading—you could have still done that. You didn’t have to quit.”

“Didn’t have to, but I needed to. This,” Shiro holds out his right hand, gestures to the space between them, to any number of things that occupy it, metaphorically. “This is exactly why I got out. I got used to vaulting between emergencies. It made me so temporary about my life. I have other responsibilities now—ones that are permanent.”

Keith looks down to where Shiro spins his wedding band around his left ring finger with his thumb. Whatever his excuses, at the heart of it, Shiro gave up flying for a man. Half their lifetimes ago, Shiro had made the exact opposite decision. Adam and Shiro were headed in different directions then, and now Shiro is trying to fly in parallel to Curtis. Keith cannot be sure which is the right call.

Maybe Shiro can’t either because he says, “Even if Lance thinks otherwise.”

Keith jerks. “Lance? What does Lance have to do with it?”

Creeping dread tickles up Keith’s spine, and heat flares across his cheeks as he remembers what Lance had been intimating about him and Shiro at the wedding. And at the hospital. Had Lance said anything to Shiro? If he had repeated one-half of what he said to Keith, Keith is going to skip worrying over whether his friend tried to commit suicide and just murder him himself.

Shiro laughs, dryly. “Oh, nothing. One of his delusions.”

He says it like this is an old joke and not a verging-on-mortal issue they had all just had a fight about. Even so, that’s not what has Keith’s mouth going dry.

Licking his lips, feigning, poorly, at nonchalance, Keith asks, “What did he say?”

“He said Curtis and I were temporary.” Shiro grimaces with disgust, but he casts no significant looks, nor demonstrates a pointed absence of them either.

“Wow, rude,” Keith says automatically. Relief is a soothing balm on his nerves. If that’s all Lance said—well, it’s not kind, but it’s nothing Keith must kill him over.

“He’s not well, Keith,” Shiro chides, but there is no force to it. He’s happy to have Keith in his corner. He says, “It’s weird, though.”

“What is?”

“He doesn’t understand my relationship, doesn’t think it can last, but he knows exactly where we’re headed together at the same time.” Shiro’s pitch rises at the end of this sentence like it’s a question. “Like he expects we’ll do things together that we haven’t really planned on.”

“Like what?” Safely out of humiliation’s reach, Keith is frankly curious what delusions Lance has turned on other people.

“He was telling me not to adopt kids.” Shiro laughs, the sound wan and thin to Keith’s ears. “I just got married. I’m not ready for that yet.”

“Right.” Keith’s answering chuckle is just as phony. “But that’s hardly reading tea leaves, Shiro. It’s a safe assumption.”

Shiro is a kind, patient, nurturing person who helped transform any number of awkward, scared, or petulant cadets into mature, confident, responsible members of the Garrison. It’s easy—too easy, maybe—for Keith to envision him with two or three kids, all of them doting on him. He struggles more to include Curtis in the picture, but his mind eventually supplies the image of the happy family—and some less joyful feelings to go along with it.

Shiro’s blush spreads over his nose. “Well, maybe. Curtis and I had talked about it, but for the future, you know? Lance talked about it like it had already happened. It’s kind of eerie, the insight he has despite being delusional.”

“A stopped clock is right twice a day,” Keith supplies.

“An infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters eventually come up with Shakespeare?” Shiro chuckles. “I guess. It doesn’t make it less odd.” He grimaces. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“That Lance is odd? Why would that be news?” Keith flashes his canines.

Shiro’s humor sobers. “Did he say anything to you at the hospital?”

Keith squirms, fights to maintain eye contact. “He said he didn’t try to hurt himself and that I was more suicidal than him.”

It should be a joke. As ever, he is lousy at them.

Shiro blanches. “Keith—”

“He’s wrong, Shiro,” Keith says, hastily.

Months apart and, before that, months of communication solely via text has left Keith vulnerable to the penetrating stare Shiro possesses.

“No, he isn’t, is he.” It is not a question. Keith inhales, ready to protest, but Shiro holds up a hand. “I’m not pushing you, Keith. You don’t answer to me, okay?”

Shiro walks over to him and draws him into the kind of hug they haven’t had in ages. Not even at the wedding, where all was mirth and lightness. This is more of what they used to have, physical contact to drown out the static in both their brains. Shiro clasps Keith’s hand in his left, not the right, so he can pull Keith in even closer.

In the way that no other touch in his life has, the embrace quiets him. It’s intimate in a hundred ways that Keith cannot process and remain totally sane himself. This what passes for nostalgia, in his reckoning of the word—that fondness and heartsickness for something lost that other people would describe when talking about old favorite places or books. Keith never had anything like that in his life that he can recall. He had only ever had this, this touch that could ground his live-wire temper and anxieties. Nothing—not flying, not fighting, not Voltron, not even sex comes close. Shiro’s touch turns back the clock, and he’s not a Blade, a Paladin, or a cadet; he’s a kid being told, for the first time since his father died, that someone cared.

“I’m not pushing,” Shiro repeats, murmuring into Keith’s ear. “But if you need to talk, ever, I’ll listen.”

Keith draws back, regretting the loss of physical contact with Shiro and desperate for it. Another breath, and he might confess to anything, including the truth.

“I’m okay, Shiro.” Keith shakes his head, dislodging the yearning that has his body keening towards Shiro’s for another hug. “We have bigger problems to deal with right now.”

Shiro grins at him.

“What?”

“Just like old times.”

Keith feigns disgust. “I thought you were giving up living from crisis to crisis.”

Shiro shrugs. “I promise to report myself to my therapist right after this one.”

Keith only notices that Shiro is still holding his hand when he releases it. He draws Keith in his wake with the Altean one pressed against his shoulder blades. Keith, as ever, follows.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Keith’s issues – there are so many. Thank you to lovely commenters on the last chapter. I made an excuse for myself to include more angst about Keith and his neuroses. Hopefully, not too much. But if ever anyone needed to be in therapy (more than Shiro, maybe), it’s Keith.
> 
> 2) Oddly, Keith’s issues made it easier for me to write this particular development in his chapter. I had originally intended to string things out for Hunk to be the one communicating with Lance after this episode of (questionable) self-harm. I discarded a lot of writing from his POV because it made so much more sense that Keith, who had the distance and experience to come with fresh eyes, might be less inclined to baby Lance about it. Their dynamic was much more lively as a result, which I desperately needed in a chapter as heavy as this one. But also I like being able to given Lance more personality, rather than just letting him be the sufferer throughout. His and Keith’s friendship/rivalry over the seasons of VLD is one of the best, most important depictions of male homosociality I’ve ever seen. It’s not schmaltzy or perfect, but it’s progressive and natural.
> 
> 3) All medical conditions are as accurate as my research and experience can make them. Sadly, malignant catatonia is a real condition. It is life-threatening and dangerous, and here, at least, Shiro and I agree on this not being something you mess about with.
> 
> 4) Suicide is preventable. If you are struggling, you can call (in the US) the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. You are worth having around, every day. Even though I have never met you, I love you. I think you’re valuable. Please, stay.


	7. Things fall apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang, back together again. A last supper.

Of course, Gateway Central Hospital was never going to just shrug off the fact that Keith effectively kidnapped one of its patients. Luckily, the medical director was a former Garrison Medical trainee, so Hunk knows how to bribe her with baked goods in order to stave off a police action. They can’t help Lance from behind bars. Shiro helps, too, he supposes, by tasking his brother-in-law to provide the medical jargon necessary to justify the change in venue. But, really, Hunk knows that it’s the baked Alaska he prepares and that Keith, via Kosmo, delivers while it’s still on fire.

Bribing Veronica into not killing her brother is the first actual culinary challenge Hunk has had in a long time. He opts for beef stew, something homespun and unfancy—Veronica in a fit is not a Veronica that seeks delicacy in her delicacies—and loads her up after with desserts richer than kings can afford. Lance plays his part by eating several portions of everything Hunk prepares, and those two things in concert work wonders for everybody’s mood. Especially Veronica’s, which is the paramount concern.

A portion of Pidge’s laboratory has been converted, with astonishingly little difficulty, into a kitchen, and some vacant office space into quarters—all on the unspoken agreement that centralizing their efforts is essential to succeeding in them. Only Shiro goes home at night on a regular basis over the following week. The rest of them are all-in. Hunk comms back and forth to Shay; she is overseeing a mission to Arus in his absence. That’s the story, nothing anyone could find suspect about him reassuring his second-in-command about taking the lead in her first diplomatic mission. Unless, of course, anyone read the contents of the comms.

So for lunch, Hunk is preparing _pernil asado con mojo_ , another unfussy but savory centerpiece as Veronica and Lance go back and forth about medications at the lab bench-cum-dining table behind him. On the subject of drug therapy, Hunk has little to contribute—Pidge has the alarming comfort with drug regimens, not he—although he has taken a crash course on avoiding refeeding syndrome in the chronically malnourished. Thus far his expertise appears as welcome and as excellent as his food. Today, his primary function, however, is to distract Veronica when she is especially vehement with her brother. He’s making _torticas de morón_ for dessert, and he wants to get the base right so he can wow them with the guava topping (that he is making vegan in hopes of exporting the cookies to Altea).

Overall, the discussion about medications is not a fight, not hardly, except between Lance’s memory and his medical records.

“I never took a blue pill in my life, have no plans to start now,” Lance says, his fist full of his hair as he tugs on it, trying to focus on the substantial list in front of him even as his eyelids droop.

“You were definitely on dilaftin,” Veronica counters. “We don’t have the files from off-planet. They could be in those records.”

“I never saw any doctors off Earth.”

“Yes, you did. You picked up meds on Altea on Allura Day.”

“They were sent there,” Lance groans, “I never had any Altean doctors except the one Pidge’s talking to upstairs.”

The lab is the kitchen and dining area, and, although living quarters in general are on the floor above, “upstairs” is shorthand for Pidge’s office. Hunk believes she may have lived out of it before they all descended on her. Any question of whether she lives there now has long since been answered.

The Altean doctor is named Paugh. He is not quite a psychologist or psychiatrist, but a person who studies alchemists, which is as near to crazy people as Alteans, especially now, seem to want to get. Most of what he and Pidge talk about is impenetrable even to Hunk. Paugh’s involvement is not all altruistic; the turquoise-cheeked man had actually cried when Pidge offered to send him scans and information about two people intimately connected to Altean alchemy. Poor Shiro and Lance—Coran had had to reign in Paugh’s excitement. _Coran_.

The medication argument was to settle what psychopharmaceuticals Lance had been on, for how long, and how it might rub up against alchemical alterations to bipeds. Shiro’s medical history was no less complex, between having been born with a genetic illness, going unmonitored as a Galran prisoner, dying and being preserved as a consciousness within an alchemically-enhanced robot, and being reincarnated in a non-affected clone of himself. He’d been as thoroughly grilled as Lance. Hunk made to sure to be absent whenever Pidge started spit-balling with Paugh about scanning all the Paladins for the good doctor’s research. They had all piloted sentient, alchemical robots, so all of their brains could be invaluable, indelible databases of flesh and alchemical interaction. Hunk just liked his occupied with preparing food and keeping the peace in their makeshift home.

“I don’t think I saw any blue pills on Altea,” Hunk contributes, braving Veronica’s wrath.

“Why do I remember them, then?” She snaps.

“I was on dilaudid because of my stomach then, I think,” Lance says. “Those were green. Greenish-blue.”

“And it does sound like dilaftin,” Hunk contributes, holding a spoon out to Veronica as she opens her mouth to scold.

“You probably called it the wrong thing,” Veronica accuses before accepting a bite of the _torticas_ dough. Her face softens; Hunk has hit a home run with the cookies.

He has also noticed that Veronica tends to deflect blame when she’s wrong. It’s not her most endearing trait. He is beginning to wonder if it’s genetic, given how impenetrable Lance’s self-worth always was. In that regard, not that he wishes crippling mental illness on anyone, it has improved his ability to take criticism.

“You’re doing great, guys,” he affirms.

“Thank you, Hunk,” Lance yawns. To Veronica, he says “Can I nap now?”

It is a sign of how much better she feels about everything that she can roll her eyes instead of biting her lip. “You _just_ got up.”

Veronica is also prone to exaggeration under stress, which says more about what she considers stressful than anything. Ryan Kinkade and he had talked about Veronica’s suicidal focus during the Galran occupation of Earth. In his account, she was cool as a cucumber. But if Lance spends more than eight hours sleeping, she’s setting alarms every two hours during the day. Lance isn’t the only Paladin throwing her ugly looks when they go off.

Lance protests, “I ate a big breakfast. My brain is seriously weighed down by a meat coma that has to happen.”

He had eaten a lot, which was mostly Hunk’s doing. Any time Lance’s plate had been tipping towards more than halfway empty, he distracted him and slipped in another sausage or pancake, whatever he thought he could get away with. He tracked the additions. Lance had eaten more food than Shiro thanks to his subterfuge. He was allowed a post-meal respite.

“Go on then,” Hunk encourages. “I’ll call you back for lunch.”

Lance ambles off, leaving Veronica behind to scowl at his medical records.

“He sleeps too much,” she grouses once Lance is out of earshot. For Veronica, this is subtle. She is feeling out the edges of a fight instead of barreling into one. The cookie dough must have been more effective than Hunk realized.

“It will take a while for his system to come off of starvation mode,” Hunk explains. “It takes a lot of energy to digest food, and he’s running on low reserves there.”

“Know what else is low? His weight. _Still,_ ” Veronica says, swapping over the data on her padd. Now they’re alone, they can conference on the parameters they are monitoring together. “Not a pound in five days.” She turns the padd so Hunk can read it.

Discouraged, Hunk frowns. His job is to make sure Lance eats; Veronica’s is to make sure what he eats stays down. Neither of them is failing, but the numbers don’t lie. She taps this morning’s weigh-in with a pointed fingernail, not quite a bomb lobbed at his optimism, but close.

“He hasn’t lost anything either,” Hunk offers. “Stopping the loss is important, too, even if we can’t make gains yet.”

“We— _he_ needs to gain, Garrett,” Veronica spits, her reserve of diplomatic responses exhausted. She jerks her chin at his pork marinade. “Can’t you just dump a lot of butter into that?”

Hunk swoons, clutches at his chest. “You wound me.”

Veronica stares at him, unblinking.

“Your lack of gustatory appreciation for the food from your own culture is disappointing,” Hunk says, shaking his head. “No, I cannot. That would work completely against the citrus flavor profile of the meat.”

He adds, “Besides, refeeding has to be done gradually or he winds up in the hospital.”

Veronica snorts and throws herself backward in her chair, hitting the back of it with a huff. “We’re probably headed that way no matter what we do.”

Pessimism, he expects; defeatism not so much. Veronica’s manic management of her brother is likely the reason he has come as far as he has, as evidenced by the fact he ended up in the hospital without her. She could use some reassurance, too.

“It’s frustrating to wait for results,” Hunk says, extending his spoon with more cookie dough. Veronica falls on it, snatching the spoon and the bowl from him. He lets her; he can make more. If the recipe is Veronica-approved, he doesn’t even need to tinker with it. “But nothing is getting worse, and that _is_ progress. We just have to be patient.”

As a group, the Paladins and Veronica are pathologically ill-suited to patience. Even Shiro, whose admonitions on the subject are somewhat legendary, is hardly a paragon of self-restrain. And he’s the _best_ of them at this. His level head is sorely missed when he steps out to make requisite appearances in his young marriage. Hunk can admit he takes his frustrations out on his kitchen, which is why the egg whites in last night’s meringue were not whipped so much as flayed. Pidge vaults between the highs and lows of over-caffeinated brainstorms. Keith blinks out of the laboratory space on any excuse—any errand that needs doing, he’s the one to do it. Hunk pretends not to notice how often his trips away coincide with Shiro’s departures.

Veronica licks the spoon clean of dough, goes back for seconds. “This is just so weird.”

Hunk nods. “Have you spoken with your folks about it?”

“Not really. Lance didn’t want to worry them.”

“What do you want?”

Veronica frowns around the spoon in her mouth. “I guess,” she mumbles, “for him to just get better?”

“No, not for Lance,” Hunk corrects, “for yourself?”

“Huh?”

Hunk hides a laugh behind the back of his hand, her confusion complete and endearing. He gestures at his kitchen set up. “I realize I haven’t asked about what you were doing before this. You were on the Atlas with Shiro, and now it’s grounded. Are you sticking with the Garrison?”

Veronica shakes her head. “There isn’t even a Garrison anymore.”

Right, he’d forgotten; there was only the Coalition now. Sam Holt had gotten his way. The announcement had happened a week ago. Hunk’s team, being mostly comprised of aliens, always functioned as part of the Coalition, so not much will change for him. The Coalition’s name bothers Hunk more than the loss of the Garrison. There are so many alien species in the Coalition now, including ones that had never even seen the lions. So it’s the Coalition, not the Voltron Coalition. Maybe peace warrants—nay, demands—that the universe abandon even sentient, justice-bent weapons of war. Still, the name change means that the lions are gone anew, that Hunk has lost Yellow again, and he mourns.

Veronica fidgets, lost in her own nostalgia for such times. “It’s not the same, even if it’s better. I have a lot of leave banked, which I’ve been using. I have skills that would be valuable in the right position within the Coalition, but I’m not sure I’m content with just making peace.”

Privately, Hunk doubts Veronica would ever be the choice of person to put forward into any role with a primary emphasis on making peace. Part of why _he_ is so good at such things is that he does not make the comment aloud. He settles instead on listing her qualifications.

“You’re obviously smart, and driven,” he says. “You think pretty quick on your feet. There’s lots of people who could use that help.” He ponders a bit. “Have you thought about asking Keith if the Blade of Marmora could use you?”

“I don’t know,” she says, tapping her lower lip. “Too much misery. I think I’d burn out.”

She’s not wrong. Unspoken is the acknowledgment that someone who grew up as Keith did, with repeated exposure to hardship and suffering, has a kind of immunity to compassion fatigue. Poor Keith.

“You survived the Galra occupation,” Hunk says, probing.

“That was different. That was fighting,” Veronica says, dismissing the idea. “I _like_ fighting. I’m good at it.”

That much is obvious.

“Maybe nothing on the front line,” Hunk says. “Maybe logistical management? Ryan told me you were gangbusters at resource diversion during the occupation.”

Kinkade, in his unassuming way, had been effusive about Veronica’s skills. For a normally reticent man like Kinkade, it was high praise indeed for others to merit a mention.

Veronica cocks her head at angle, interested in this statement. “Kinkade? When did you speak with him?”

“He took a job with the Coalition’s public relations core. We were planning on filming the trip to Arus that Shay is taking over for me.”

Veronica’s smile is wistful. “He could have kept flying, but he just loves fiddling with his cameras.”

“And now he has lots of fiddling to do.” He’s _good_ at it, too. He cannot wait to see how well Ryan captures Shay on camera. Hunk must catch the broadcast, or record it, so they can talk about it later. He’ll comm Ryan and see when it’s airing on Earth. He’ll comm Shay after.

“I wish Nadia would fiddle with something else,” Veronica grouses, good-naturedly continuing the conversation despite Hunk’s brain perambulating onto other topics. “She misses flying for the Garrison. I keep telling her to look up private commercial flight options. She says its useless since wormhole technology exists.”

Hunk hums at that. “We still need pilots for ground-based transport. If she’s looking for the adrenaline rush, she could always be an ambulance pilot.”

Veronica eyeballs him with a smirk. “This is Nadia Rizavi, Garrett. You want her in charge of patients’ safety?”

“You said she had excellent handling skills!”

Too late, he realizes he has stumbled into a horrible double entendre when Veronica waggles her eyebrows. His friends and his friends’ family are off-limits when it comes to sex; Veronica does not appear to have gotten that memo.

With a groan, he says, “I thought you two weren’t together.”

“Did you get that from Lance?” Veronica holds up the back of her hand against the side of her mouth, whispers, “I hear he’s crazy.”

Hunk puts his fists on his hips. “I thought Lance was crazy when he said you _were_ together.”

Veronica shrugs, twirls a strand of her hair around her finger. It is so adorably juvenile.

“What can I say—he’s crazy, not stupid. Ever since Allura Day, I’d been thinking about it, and she and I had so much time on our hands with the Garrison being restructured. Nadia is—” she fishes for a word, no doubt selecting for something mortifying. “Nadia is impulsive, melodramatic, completely scatter-brained…”

Just as Hunk thinks he’s cleared embarrassment, Veronica strikes. “And I like the way her legs feel around my ears, but I wouldn’t necessarily put them behind the wheel unless speed were necessary.”

Hunk debates turning on the gas lines on the laboratory bench until he asphyxiates and dies. If he waits a little longer, all the blood rushing into his face might drown his brain so he doesn’t have to. He hasn’t sweated this much over any oven.

Veronica’s smile is predatory. “Oh Garrett, relax, you _virgin_.”

An undignified squawk escapes his throat, his mind too arrested by the words _legs_ and _around_ and _my ears_ to control his mouth. “I’m not a virgin!”

Veronica’s grin widens to show all her teeth. “That _must_ be a recent development, given what my brother said about you.”

A bevy of emotions vie for control of Hunk’s short-circuiting brain. One, he wants to crawl into his oven and set it on broil. Two, he wants to shove _Veronica_ into the oven and roast her. Three, if he does his job and fattens Lance up again, it will be more satisfying to strangle him. Four, _holy quiznak did all his friends think he was a virgin_?

“Breathe, Garrett,” Veronica sing-songs.

“That’s not—I’m not—it’s none of your business—”

“ _Breathe_ ,” she stresses, her tongue caught between her still-bared teeth.

“What I do with my personal time is nobody’s business!”

Veronica huffs. “Sure. And how long have you and Shay been sleeping together?”

Hunk yanks his headband down to bead up the sweat on his brow. And to cover his eyes. And possibly smother himself. When he risks lifting it again a full dobosh later, Veronica’s expression has relaxed into something verging on friendly.

“You’re adorable,” she says, leaning her chin into her hand. “Lance set you up, too, huh?”

Hunk does not deny it. It’s not that he hadn’t been interested in Shay before Allura Day, only that he hadn’t defined his interest within romantic boundaries. She was Shay, and she was his friend, a brave survivor, and a pleasant and talented coworker. Lance’s teasing had created the possibility of new descriptors—girlfriend, partner, lover, maybe even love. It tipped his friendly associations with Shay into the incurably amorous from which they never rebounded—not that he wanted them to. He’d had only weeks since Allura Day and now, and that’s how fast and far they’d fallen.

Allura Day and its traumatic revelations hadn’t been all bad, it seems.

“C-crazy,” he stutters, “not stupid.”

****

“Another smashing success of a meal,” Shiro compliments him after polishing off a healthy portion of the pork roast and an equal or larger share of mixed vegetables. To maintain his bulk, Shiro has to eat a bevy of protein and vegetables on the regular. He is, by far, the best eater, but Hunk still glares at the potatoes _au gratin_ he has ignored. He’s still fit as a fiddle, and he’s retired. Would it _kill_ the man to enjoy these advantages and have a carb? He opens his mouth to say as much and stops. Nope. No jokes about killing Shiro. They aren’t funny, never will be.

Keith says, his mouth _full_ of potatoes, “Yeah, good job, Hunk.”

Hunk debates the merits of picking a fight with Keith over his metabolism and how unfair it is that he can eat his _and_ Shiro’s portion of the potatoes and weigh barely more than Lance. Galra metabolism is a tricky thing, though, which Hunk suspects he knows better than Keith. Deprivation and training kept the soldiers of the Galran Empire lean, but they all seem to have a tipping point. Like cats—once the runaway weight gain starts, they all, irrevocably, round out. Half of his mission on Daibazaal involves nutritional management for weight loss.

“You’ll regret that later,” is all he says as Keith reaches for the spoon for the potatoes.

Keith hesitates long enough for Lance to snag it away from him. Lance sticks his tongue out at Keith. “Hunk’s telling you you’re getting chunky. And,” he grins, “slow.”

“Am not!”

Hunk and Shiro speak at the same time. “Cut it out, you two.”

Keith, Lance, Veronica, and Pidge look between him and Shiro. Pidge is the first to crack. She sniggers behind her hand. The wave passes to Veronica, whose lips tremble with effort to appear neutral. Keith cracks a smile, directed at—of course—Shiro.

Which leaves him vulnerable to attack. A serving spoonful of potatoes hits him in the neck.

“You—you!” Keith launches himself to his feet, slamming his palms down on the table.

Lance’s smile extends from ear to ear, wrinkling the thin skin on his face. “Told you: slow.”

Keith scoops up a handful of seasoned snow peas and flings them at Lance. If Hunk _approved_ of such an abuse of food, he would have told Keith this was a bad choice of weapon. One does land on Lance’s cheek because Keith’s aim is exact even if his choice of projectile is poor. The majority of the snow peas flutter and fall immediately out of his hand. It’s more than a little pathetic.

That does it. Everybody except Keith breaks, even Hunk who still smarts over the wasted food. Shiro is doubled over and pointing at Keith’s non-plussed expression. Keith whips his head around to skewer Shiro with a withering stare, which makes Shiro’s giggle fit worse. He hiccups, grabs at his gut as he sucks air through his teeth. Pidge and Veronica clasp each other around the shoulders, hollering.

Keith glowers at Lance, who recovers quickest of any of them. Genteel, Lance retrieves another snow pea and lays it daintily on his opposite cheek. He positions them so they cover the Altean marks on his face. They don’t lay flat, and in their shadow, Hunk spies a glimmer of light not unlike the illumination at Shiro’s right shoulder.

Lance turns to Pidge who is _crying_ in Veronica’s arms. “What’cha think, Pidge? Does this mean I’m part snow pea? Should we consult with your mom?”

Shiro, on the verge of regaining control of himself, barks out one loud, “Ha!” He is then indisposed for another few doboshes. Keith, frozen with his index finger extended, as though he intended to argue about something, falls back on his rear end, shuddering. He lifts his head enough for Hunk to see, through his long forelocks, that he is grinning, too.

Another smashing success, indeed. It almost— _almost_ —serves as recompense for using food as a weapon. The laughter forestalls further waste, so Hunk excuses himself to fetch desserts from the fridges in the other room. His friends’ amusement buoys his spirits enough that he dawdles a little longer than necessary to comm Shay. She must be in a whirlwind of preparation on Arus by now, but she still sent him a note to inquire as to how things were progressing. That was hours ago. Hunk sends her a petulant reply.

_They’re throwing food._

Shay’s response comes immediately. _Oh Hunk._

He envisions her pointed mouth tipping downward along with her bright eyes, worried for him. _No, no! That’s good. It’s good. They’re having fun_.

Proving how far she’s come as a chef, Shay’s response is: _But at what cost?_

Hunk presses the tips of his fingers against a stupid and bashful and delighted smile. _Have I told you I love you recently?_

He busies himself with the platters for dessert. In addition to the _torticas_ , he had made apple pie with graham cracker crusts for Pidge, chocolate cake for Keith, and _palusami_ for himself. He had even revived the mochi recipe from Shiro’s wedding after Shiro confessed he couldn’t make dinner because it was his six-month anniversary. There was extra for him to take home tonight by way of apology to Curtis for occupying so much of Shiro’s time.

Hands full of desserts, Hunk has to juggle his comm to read Shay’s reply. _No, actually. You haven’t ever said that._

Hunk nearly drops every last plate. He drops the comm instead, as if it burned him. Of all the ways to confess, he chose to do it via comm. When he is hundreds if not thousands of light years away and they’re both swept up in crises. There is no way, via text, to convey the full range of emotions squeezing around his heart right now. What’s the word for “I was joking, except not really, but I was if you’re not ready for that, but also I hope you feel the same way”? Maybe there’s one in Galran. Maybe he can ask Keith. Keith probably knows that word, if anyone does.

His comm lands face up so he can see Shay answer while he panics. _I love you, too._

Oh. Oh. _Oh_.

He cannot pick up the comm without losing more food. He thinks Shay would understand. Also, as soon as he puts these damn cakes down, he’s going back for that. She loves him! He isn’t going to be good for much for the rest of, well, forever. He floats back over to the dining table around the corner. Everyone appears happy and contented, but he is certain that right now his face shines brightest. He tamps down the goofy, fluffy, _excellent_ feeling suffusing his whole body when he catches Veronica’s raised eyebrow. She knows—maybe not specifics, but enough. Hunk finds he does not care.

“I have more,” he prattles as he sets the mochi down for Shiro. “For Curtis.”

Shiro nods, tucks in with gusto. Maybe he was saving his carb allowance for just this moment. Right now, Hunk could forgive him the world. He even sets the cake in front Keith without letting his dislike of Keith’s attempt at a food fight show. The other plates reach their respective places without Hunk’s conscious awareness of it. Veronica snags the _torticas_ before Lance can, holding them hostage while he turns wet, puppy eyes on her. She’s all bark, though; she serves herself only two of the three dozen Hunk prepared and gives him the rest. Lance beams at her, snow peas falling off his cheeks as his skin wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

Yeah, he’s definitely glowing. It’s still subtle, more like the shimmer of fluorescent paint than a light emanating from within, like with Shiro’s arm. But it’s there. Hunk glances at the others, looks to see if anyone else notices. No one is even looking at Lance besides him. Hunk grunts once, nudges Pidge with his right elbow. She raises her head from her plate but hunches over it—as if Hunk, the purveyor of sweets, might be the one to steal them from her.

“Lance,” he mutters out of one corner of his mouth before biting into his _palusami_.

Pidge slides her eyes, then her head, to her right. This is what passes for guile in their group. She scans Lance over a few times; she has spent more time examining him than any of them, she has a better reference to contrast with his current appearance.

Her lips slide open and a spray of crumbs that should go out gets inhaled as she gasps. Then Pidge is _choking_ and no one, including Hunk, is paying Lance any attention. Veronica thumps her along her back, reassesses, then kicks her chair back as she opts for the full Heimlich. Hunk wants to say she’s overreacting until, on her third firm and harsh thrust upwards with her clenched fists, Veronica dislodges a bite of apple pie the size of Hunk’s thumb. Pidge spits it across the table, groans as she sucks at air.

“Pidge!” Shiro cries. “Are you okay?” He, Keith, and Lance are all gaping at their end of the table.

Pidge gags, struggles for air and to get out of Veronica’s arms. She flails, and Veronica tumbles backward onto her butt as Pidge launches herself at Lance. Pidge grabs his face, digging her thumbs into his chin and pressing finger tips along the curve of his jaws. Without explaining, still retching a bit, she turns his face to one side and then the other.

“HOW—” She coughs directly into Lance’s face. He flinches away from some spittle and crumbs as she shouts, batting ineffectually at the death grip she has on him. “HOW LONG HAS THAT BEEN HAPPENING?”

Lance’s lower lip quivers, his whole body hanging from where she’s holding him up as she tilts her glasses down to eyeball his cheeks up close. She presses her index fingers into the Altean marks, watches the skin blanch under the pressure.

“How long has _what_ been happening?” Lance whimpers.

“Your face,” Keith says, deadpan.

Lance cannot look away from Pidge, but he flips Keith off. “Nice one, Mullet-boy.” To Pidge, he says, “Do I still have snow pea on—”

“Shut up,” Pidge demands. “Hunk, _lights_.”

Hunk is on his feet before his brain has registered the order for what it is. He jogs to the switch and throws it and spins around. The ambient light from the hallway casts the group in gray shadows, traces the curves of their faces and bodies. Shiro’s shoulder tints him and Keith a bright blue. Everyone holds their breath and Pidge repeats her scrutinized turns of Lance’s head; she angles his chin towards and away from her.

In the dark, Hunk can pick out the lighter skin of the Altean markings against the bronze of Lance’s cheek. But there’s no glow, not even a dark after-image in the same spot. Not like he thought he saw before. No, that he _definitely_ saw before. Pidge saw it, too. And she’s not letting go of it, no matter that three other people are eyeing her quizzically. Hunk flips the switch again; lights come on and everyone squints at the abrupt brightness.

Except for Pidge. Her lower eyelid twitches, but that has nothing to do with the lights. Pidge enunciates each word slowly.

“We need to go to the lab. Right now.” She does not release her grip on Lance’s face.

“But…cookies,” Lance whines.

“NOW.”

“Pidge, slow down,” Shiro advises. Some time between lights out and Pidge shouting, he’d moved from his seat. He pries off her fingers. Lance melts away from her in relief, rubbing his jaw. In even, measured tones, Shiro orders her, “Tell us what you saw.”

Pidge points an accusing finger at Lance. “His face is glowing.”

Shiro looks at her, then at his right shoulder—for reference, Hunk supposes—and then at Lance’s face.

“It doesn’t look like it,” Shiro hedges. This strategy, of asking for more evidence through gentle challenge, is a Shiro specialty. It should calm things down.

Instead, Pidge stomps her feet like a quiznakking child. “I saw it!”

“I did, too,” Hunk volunteers.

Lance raises an eyebrow, his mouth open in a surprised circle. He touches two fingers to his cheek, then draws them away to stare at them, as though evidence of the anomaly might come away like paint.

“They’ve never glowed,” Lance says, not argumentative as much as astounded.

“They do now,” Pidge hisses and points her quivering index finger in the direction of the MRI suite. “March.”

Holding his hands up in surrender, Lance loops a leg over his chair, backing away slowly. “But…cookies,” he repeats, casting a longing look at the _torticas_ he is going to leave behind. Pidge pushes, straight-armed, against his back to shove him along.

“I can make more,” Hunk calls after him, waving as Pidge gets Lance over the threshold into the hallway. Another ten dozen, if he needs. Hunk walks around the table, extends a hand to Veronica to lift her up from the floor.

“Thank you for being a gentleman,” she says, narrowing her eyes at Keith and Shiro for not doing the same.

Shiro, abashed, mutters apologies, but Keith, unlike the rest of them, is unaffected by Veronica’s moods. Figures—his are often just as bad. Hunk contemplates the odds of either of them surviving close quarters for much more than a few weeks. They _need_ to figure out what’s going on--

Pidge shrieks.

Hunk spins on his heel, as do Shiro and Veronica. The latter two have their arms raised in fighting stances; old habits die hard. Keith vaults to his feet and then all four of them are running towards and tumbling through the doorway to the hall.

Pidge has Lance in her arms. Specifically, he hangs from his armpits over the bend of her elbows. His head lolls to the side as she shifts his weight. Undersized she might be, but even her narrow arms don’t tremble under the lightness of her burden. He has over a foot on her in height, so his legs are folded under his torso, but she holds him. Too easily.

When she turns her head to speak over her shoulder, her features are frozen in a rictus of terror. “A little help?”

This time, Keith and Shiro leap into action to help her carry him down the hall while Hunk and Veronica watch. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Veronica cry. He ignores the suspicion that it might not be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hunk is hard to write! He’s interesting because I think he’s the most insightful of the Paladins aside from later-seasons Lance. But it’s hard to make him reacting to people interesting.
> 
> 2) Hunk and Shay forever. Veronica and Nadia: shipped it from “And shotgun.” “I really like her.” They did not interact significantly again except for the attempt in season 8 to make it seem like Veronica was asking about Keith. I choose to believe that Lance mistook her interest in “the longer haired one” for literally anyone else. Acxa, Romelle, even Allura. Veronica is 100% my lesbian bestie. Nadia is her disaster-child girlfriend.
> 
> 3) It feels like Hunk and Veronica moved too fast on their respective love interests. Still makes more sense than Cheerios Shirogane.  
> Researching food for Hunk to prepare was fun and terrible because it made me hungry the entire time.
> 
> 4) Pidge is up next. Things may be going from bad to worse. It depends on your definition.


	8. The darkness drops again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge cannot make sense of her data. She and Lance disagree on prognosis.

In the end, it’s three against three, nays versus yays for taking Lance to the hospital, and the nays carry the lopsided vote because Lance is a 'nay.' Pidge is another and better able to be vociferous about it. The coffee she had for breakfast—and the one she had after breakfast, and the iced coffee at lunch, and the energy drink in the can she’s crushing right now—helps with the volume.

“He said he doesn’t want to go,” she shouts, standing guard outside the MRI suite where Chip is helping Lance onto the gantry for scans. During the four vargas he was unconscious, and during which the Paladins argued, Pidge had scanned him from head to toe in order to compare these scans with his waking and sleeping reports. He agreed to repeat them awake as soon as she explained what she had done.

“He doesn’t know what’s best for him,” Veronica hisses. Her red-rimmed eyes complete a picture of fury that has not abated since lunch. She, too, is over-caffeinated and under-slept.

Shiro, calmer but no less perturbed by recent events, says, “You promised, Pidge.”

“I promised if he showed signs of malignant catatonia that I would transfer him to the hospital. This is not that.”

“Convenient that you’re the only one who thinks she knows the difference,” Veronica accuses, pacing.

“She would know,” Keith muses. “She did the reading.”

He had been the only one to side with her and Lance. That was surprising—both for Keith defying Shiro’s most desperate appeals and for Hunk siding against her. She felt better for having him in her corner.

“Guys,” Hunk pleads, “this isn’t helpful.”

Pidge ignores him. If her best friend isn’t going to have her back, after what he and she both saw, she has no interest in his placations. She is definitely going to dump his pie in the garbage. Or worse, eat out the filling and leave the crust behind. She could use the sugar.

“The more data we generate here, the more we know about what we’re dealing with. The better we can spot trends. If we move Lance to a hospital now, they’ll drug him again. He doesn’t want that.”

Besides, if past is prologue, the medical doctors will only faff the diagnosis again. The physical changes need further study, especially the glowing Altean marks, and she and Paugh are best suited to the challenge, not a bunch of psychiatrists who’ll drug first and ask questions later.

“It’s his decision,” Keith emphasizes.

Shiro scans him, frowning as though disappointed. He nods to Veronica, who raises her chin in return. Pidge has only a moment to worry about their silent communication before Shiro speaks.

“Not if his parents get involved.”

Pidge’s jaw drops. Just as she was savoring victory, Shiro cut her legs out from under her. She should have seen it coming; Shiro was the leader of Voltron, and a tactical genius. Going around their vote without going back on his word is sneaky but brilliant. And, unfortunately for Pidge, something that trumps Lance’s objections.

“My parents are his medical and legal guardians in case of mental or physical incapacitation,” Veronica elaborates. “If they believe he is not acting in his right mind and best interests, they can have him involuntarily committed.”

Keith snarls, “And how are they going to keep him there?” He drops his arms to his sides, shoulders rolled forward. His entire body shouts his intention _: try me_.

“You kidnap my brother again—” Veronica starts forward, fingers tensing into claws at her sides.

Hunk intercedes, placing his body between them. “Guys. Not. Helpful.” Around him, Keith and Veronica trade scowls.

Pidge stares at Shiro. His brow is settled in a determined line, his expression as mutinous if more subtly so than Keith’s. Like Keith, however, his posture speaks volumes: _convince me_.

Pidge takes a breath, says through clenched teeth, “Twenty-four-seven electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram, and respiratory monitoring. Round-the-clock in-person monitoring, too.”

Keith, Hunk, and Veronica glance at her, following the almost physical connection of her gaze toward Shiro.

“Do better,” he insists, folding his Altean forearm over his left one.

Keith catches on quick, used to keeping up with the direction of Shiro’s thinking. “We can get medical supplies from the Blades. Intravenous fluids, drugs for emergency resuscitation, paddles for defibrillation, intubation materials.”

Shiro turns his imperious glare on Keith; Keith’s cheeks flare with color, but he holds his defiant mien. “And?”

Pidge is forgotten in this pissing contest, and honestly, she’s glad of it. Four years since they stopped being a team, she has grown out of requiring this supervision, this _permission_ to do what she wants. She will always love Shiro, but she isn’t a kid or a Paladin any more. She knows what she’s doing. If he keeps questioning her, she’s going to pitch her energy drink at his stupid forehead.

“And Kosmo teleports Lance directly to Gateway Central Emergency Department if something goes wrong,” Keith says. “He’d get there the second after something went wrong. _If_ it does.”

Kosmo is both the key to calling Shiro and Veronica’s bluff and to appeasing them. Shiro is tactical, but Keith is just _devious_. Pidge wants to high-five him, decides it’s immature, then holds out her hand anyway. Without looking directly at her, he slaps it.

“If he’s monitored as well or better as he would be at a hospital,” Hunk says slowly, “and he has immediate access to emergency medicine, then I think that should be sufficient.”

It’s annoying how a reasonable tone out of Hunk does more to take the fight out of Shiro and Veronica than all the logic and defiance Pidge and Keith can muster. She’ll take it, but she’s not happy about it. She’s still mad at him.

“Round-the-clock,” Shiro repeats, confirming with Veronica, who turns away, unappeased. To everyone else, he says, “We take shifts. No one stays on watch more than six hours. If he has another episode like this one, he goes to the hospital.”

Pidge opens her mouth to argue; Shiro holds up his hands to forestall it. “ _Katie_ ,” he implores, “There has to be a time when you admit that what you’re able to offer isn’t as good as what he can get at a hospital. If he keeps having these blackouts, he needs _doctors_.”

At last, Keith’s resistance to Shiro crumbles. “Okay.”

“Traitor,” Pidge mutters. Figures. For a guy who loves the reputation he’s cultivated as a rebel, he has trouble saying no to Shiro for long. To Shiro, she says, “Fine.”

She does not say that doctors threw drugs at the problem and, when that didn’t work, more drugs (that also didn’t work). She does not say that doctors misdiagnosed Lance’s fainting as a drug overdose—as a quiznakking suicide attempt, no less. She does not say that doctors have failed to pursue any of his physical signs with any rigor. She does not say that doctors are ill-equipped to work-up the glowing Altean marks and their possible import, not like herself and Paugh. She does not say that she is not interested in any more officious interruptions.

What she says is, “I’m going to go run my scans now, if that’s okay with all of you.”

Despite her words, she does not wait for approval. She throws her drink can over her shoulder as she pushes through the gate into the MRI suite. Chip scurries out at speed. He has far too many metallic parts and too much electricity powering his brain to make him comfortable with staying so close to the magnet. He only stayed because she told him he couldn’t leave Lance alone while she talked to the others.

Lance lays his head to the side as she approaches. “You all done talking about me?”

Pidge ducks her chin against her chest. “Sorry.”

He waves a hand in a twirling motion, as if he were a monarch dismissing an unworthy. “Don’t be. It’s nice to hear voices arguing outside of my head for a change.”

“It’s just—” she cuts herself off. Frustrated as she is, venting is not the priority.

Lance rolls onto his side, props his head on his palm. “Go on. Get it off your chest.”

“They all think they know what’s best,” she mutters. “The reality is none of us do.”

“Great pep talk, coach,” Lance drawls, falling onto his back and lacing his fingers together over his stomach.

“Sorry,” she says, hastily, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

“Don’t be. At least you’re honest.” He purses his lips. “Hey, Pidge?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I going to die?”

Pidge rocks back on her heels, draws her hand away from him as though bitten. His words are clear, his tone level, but his gaze is vacantly trained on the ceiling. Defeatism is infectious, she remembers from years of war. Progress was never certain and every setback encouraged pessimism. The resemblance to then and now is uncanny. This is worse than being resigned to sickness; it’s acceptance of death.

“You can tell me,” his voice quavers but his expression remains resolutely fixed on the ceiling. “I’m not afraid to hear it.”

As ever, faced with a challenge, Pidge’s resolve goes steely. “You’re not going to die.”

Apropos of nothing, he says, “My granddad died when I was eight.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“He died of leukemia,” Lance says, his voice hazy with recalled memory. “I remember he was always throwing up because of the chemo. And he lost a lot of weight.”

He picks at the hem of his shirt where it falls along the jut of his prominent hip bones.

“You don’t have cancer,” she says, definite on this one point. With access to an MRI and an unconscious subject, she has had ample time to scan Lance’s entire body. If there were any tumors, she would have found them by now.

“Granddad never had any lumps until the end,” he says, his thoughts jogging alongside hers. “Blood cancer. Spread through everywhere enough to kill him, but not to show for a while.”

“No,” she says, less certain now. Cancer cells infiltrating multiple organs would expand them; on her scans, Lance’s organs were smaller than usual for his size but typical with his degree of malnourishment. A tumor would have stood out in stark relief compared to that. Still, it’s not impossible that cancer might be lurking, not yet coalesced into a distinct mass. Not impossible, but not probable either. Besides, bloodwork would have shown something. Bloodwork had shown elevated white blood cells, she recalls, which could…no. No, this is not an option.

“You don’t have cancer, Lance,” she reiterates, as much for herself as him. “You don’t want to have cancer.”

“Maybe I do,” he muses. He does not sound upset at the possibility, and his sanguinity sends shivers down Pidge’s spine. “It would be an answer.”

“A bad answer.”

“Better than a mystery illness that leaves me crazy, tired, and unconscious a lot.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Easy for you to say—it’s not your brain that’s the mystery.”

He has a point. She has had headaches from brainstorms and, right now, caffeine; she can only imagine how awful this constant barrage is for him.

“We are going to figure this out.”

His watery eyes slide shut. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” He breathes in and out, and again, and opens one eye. A hint of mischief sparkles there, warming her heart. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the booth, oh great-and-powerful Oz?”

Pidge smirks. “Would that make you Dorothy in this scenario?”

“I am definitely in a strange land these days,” Lance concedes. He shoots her a tentative smile. “Thanks for guiding me through it. And for having my back.”

Pidge nods and takes that as her cue to leave. The others have, wisely, dispersed, not waiting for her to come out. On her way to her office, she swipes some of the forgotten desserts off the dining table. Shiro’s melting mochi goes in the garbage along with her pie. Keith’s cake and the cookies she takes to her office, munching on the latter along the way.

That should send the appropriate message.

*****

The argument after lunch sours Pidge on reviewing her scans with any of the others, especially Hunk. She makes it clear that Lance and Keith are the exceptions. Keith, whether as a fit of diplomatic fervor or due to lack of interest, abstains, so it’s just her and Lance in her office tracking changes.

The holographic interface before them is crowded with every scan she’s taken, in addition to the real-time reports from the cardiac and respiratory monitoring bracelet on Lance’s wrist. The numbers there, unlike her scans, have been steady and expected.

“What’s that?” Lance points to a flare of color on the functional MRI, which defines the pathway of blood flowing to one part of his brain.

“That’s your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,” she explains. “It’s the area of the brain responsible for executive functions.”

“It’s the president of my brain?”

Pidge stifles the urge to grin and groan at the same time. “Sort of. It’s the most recently evolved portion of the brain, has a lot of control over memory and reasoning.”

“And it’s not working?”

He peers myopically at the gradation of scans, from his first visit through to today. The flare of color in that location has been riotous until this afternoon. Oddly, given the function of that segment of the brain, the flares were significantly more active when he was unconscious. According to her research, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is more often underactive in sleep, even when someone is dreaming. Lance’s brain is doing things backwards in more than one respect.

“It’s not working _as much_ ,” she hedges, “or, at least, there isn’t as much blood flow to that area as you had before. You had a lot before,” she reassures him, tapping on one of the early scans that shows rainbows of blood flow streaking through the tissue. “Maybe it was too much. Maybe this is compensatory.”

“You and your maybes.”

“It’s funny,” she muses, only realizing she said it aloud when Lance says, “What?”

“It’s funny that it’s underactive _now_.”

Essentially, schizophrenia is attributed to an underactive prefrontal cortex, but Lance’s prefrontal cortex was overactive when he was most symptomatic for the disease. It’s the opposite of what is usually observed.

“Hyperactivity in the prefrontal cortex isn’t uncommon with depression, but it shouldn’t be present when you’re asleep.”

“I’m also still hella depressed,” Lance drones, “so shouldn’t it still be more active when I’m awake?”

Pidge digs at her dry eyes with her knuckles, takes a sip of another energy drink and tosses the can into the recycling bin; it rattles when it lands among the plethora of other cans. “The brain is confusing.”

“You’re telling me.”

They sit in companionable silence as Pidge collates the data, taking measurements, charting changes to blood flow. Aside from the changes in the prefrontal cortex, there isn’t much else changing in Lance’s head. Including, disappointingly, his face. The lateral imaging of his head showed no unusual change in texture or blood flow to the Altean marks. Whether that was due to the fact they were no longer glowing, she couldn’t say. There was no way to prove a negative.

“Brains look kinda like the stars,” Lance whispers to himself, swirling his index finger through the holographic image of his own brain.

“You’re not the first person to think so.”

“That’s me, always catching on later than everybody else.”

Pidge cocks her head in his direction, watches the photons of the hologram scatter around his skin, illuminating it. The effect resembles what she saw at lunch, a shimmer of light that, unlike now, had no earthly cause. Doubt hisses in her ear that reflection _was_ all she saw earlier. She quashes it; her eyesight isn’t the best, but she knows what she saw.

She pushes away from her console. “I think we need a new approach.”

Lance looks away from where his hands still obscure the holographic interface. “Like what?”

Pidge lifts her glasses to rub at the impressions on either side of her nose. “I don’t know yet, but I promised I would set up EEG readings, so I guess we can start there.”

“You like to say letters like I have any idea what they are.”

Ignoring him, Pidge rummages through the bins in her office to come up with the electrodes she needs and another energy drink. In the bad old days, people wanting to monitor the electrical activity of the brain needed helmets of wires that could report the difference in electrical impulse between given points on the body. Time and technology have marched onward, so the principle is the same, but as with the monitor on Lance’s wrist, the implementation is less onerous. Lance sits still while she places one of the electrodes on the bony prominence of his skull just behind his ears. The _mastoid process_ , she remembers from one of the medical texts she reviewed.

When the second electrode contacts his skin, a new hologram appears, tracking scratching peaks and valleys in short bursts on multiple lines. Pidge collapses onto her stool, cracks the top of her coffee-sugar-water beverage and sips it, grumpily. At least something appears normal in this quiznakking case.

After a moment of watching the lines of the EEG, Lance says, “That looks like musical staves.”

Pidge squints at him. That’s…not inaccurate. She’s more surprised he knew the word for those lines on sheet music.

Mistaking her expression for criticism, he shrugs, takes her drink and sips it. “I’m sure other people have noticed that, too.”

“Not that I know of,” Pidge says, futzing with the dials to eliminate the interference of movement.

Recognizing her adjustments for what they are, Lance mumbles from one corner of his mouth, “Should I not talk?”

“No, go ahead. It’s a good way to test the connection.”

“Oh.” Peaks appear on some lines, valleys on others; some have both. “Okay.” A different pattern results from this. “Neat.” More and different data.

“I’m going to adjust the placement of the reading nodes,” she says, stealing a sip of her drink before giving it back to him.

Electroencephalography, or EEG, had traditionally been used to monitor brain electrical activity, but the principle can be applied to any two points on the body. That’s how electrocardiography worked, too, she explains, pointing to Lance’s wristband. MRI has not been able to determine a change to the markings over his cheeks by altering the magnetic dipoles of atoms in his skin. Maybe they can monitor electrical change instead.

“But electromagnetism is a spectrum,” Lance frowns. “Why would one be helpful and the other not?”

Pidge holds her breath. Seeing her shock, he lifts his chin, looking prideful. “I may have studied a little after you gave me a hard time about sucking at physics.”

Pidge lets out a whooshing breath, laughing at the end of it. For just a heart-stopping moment, she thought he was on the verge of another odd insight. Not for the first time, she wishes the quintessence mapping algorithms she was evolving were ready. Because if she had to lay money on a potential cause of glowing Altean marks, she’d bet on quintessence.

Instead, she teases Lance, “You’re out of the Garrison for how many years now and only _just_ doing the homework?”

He grins. With the adjustments she makes to the EEG, the electrical activity of his muscles—electromyography, she informs him—is recorded as sinusoidal deviations from the central recording line. Lance promptly proceeds to make several faces at the holographic recording. The record of him sticking his tongue out while crossing his eyes is particularly chaotic.

“Well, that works,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“They really glowed, huh?” He asks, touching his cheek.

“Don’t touch,” she says, slapping his hand away. “And yeah, they did. I thought I saw it when you came before. I wasn’t sure. But seeing is believing.”

“If you see it twice,” Lance elbows her.

“Be nice to me,” she warns him, “or I won’t catch you when you swoon again.”

So, of course, Lance sighs dramatically and tilts menacingly in her direction. “Oh, Pidge, _save me_.”

Because he’s him, he overdoes it and actually tumbles from his stool into her arms. Likewise, because it’s Lance, he feigns as though he intended to do just that. And because, well, Lance, he doesn’t seem to notice the disgusting but precious caffeine beverage spilling all over her office floor. She wants to cry. She needs that sugar.

“You’re so strong and brave,” Lance sing-songs, clasping his fingers and palms together under his chin.

“No, you’re just a lightweight—literally.”

Groaning, Lance maneuvers himself back upright. It takes more effort than it should, and Pidge holds onto him as he does. She catches one of his hands, lets him use her for leverage. The chill of his fingertips startles her, but the zip of electricity and goosebumps are not all the fault of his cold hand. Her fingers jerk, seize and lock onto his skin.

“I’m okay, Pidge,” he says, trying to loosen her grip.

The command to her fingers to let go seems stuck hallway down her arm; only her shoulder moves. He fell halfway out of his chair and took a moment too long to sit up and her heart is suddenly thumping through her chest. Her breaths start to come faster. If she were wearing Lance’s bracelet, her numbers would be close to setting off alarms, that is how much pressure has popped into her chest. It makes no sense. He was kidding, it was a joke, the swooning. Except he wasn’t—he didn’t. Falling. He fell on her today. He was in mid-sentence, joking about being the world’s most irradiated man, and she was about to say MRIs used magnets, not radiation, but the word “man” turned into a multisyllabic moan as he dropped to the floor and she had to catch him, had to--!

What’s left of her rational brain recognizes a cognitive misfire in progress quite apart from the panic of her body going into...into what? Shock? A panic attack? Rational-Pidge seizes on what she knows about panic attacks, tries to talk herself out of its influence. Panic-attack-Pidge screams over Rational-Pidge, drowns her out.

“Pidge,” Lance croons, his alarm subsiding as he draws closer to her. He puts his other hand on her neck, and she shivers. “Pidge, close your eyes and just listen, okay?”

Somehow, she does what he asks. Behind her eyelids, light streaks and after-images pulse behind them. Her own head swivels and drops on her neck, too heavy to hold up, gravity dragging it, pitilessly, down. Like Lance had, when he—

“I’m going to count,” Lance murmurs. “Every time I say ‘one,’ you inhale. When I get to ‘five,’ exhale.”

Rational-Pidge recognizes she is hyperventilating. She strains to hear his soft, “One,” and comply with the command. By the time she gets to “Five,” her diaphragm is twitching, begging to collapse and shove all the air out.

“That’s it. One,” he says, moving closer to her now. His hand on her neck kneads at the knot of her spine below her hair then travels, still pinching and massaging along her arm. “Five, and out, okay?”

This time, the exhale is less harsh. She waits for the next number, focuses on it.

“One.”

She sucks in air and puffs out her chest as she holds it. His hand continues to meander along her arm to her wrist and then to the back of her hand, his fingertips moving in circles over the tendons there. Not until the tension releases a fraction does he say, “Five.” By then there is a burn of a different sort in her chest, a physical need that overrides the trembling muscle.

“That wasn’t five,” she says on the exhale, cracking one of her lids open to eye him skeptically.

“You’re very smart,” Lance says. “Close your eyes.”

She obeys.

“One. Focus on your thumbs.”

Thumbs. Yes, she has those. They are currently curved sharply into the flesh of Lance’s left hand, nails carving crescents into his flesh. She wonders if it hurts him as much as it does her.

“Straighten them. Five.”

Some of the pressure between her thumb and forefinger releases, replaced by tension along the back of her thumb. Unbidden, her other fingers flare out and she feels the stretch of the webbing between them like an ache. Lance keeps his hand between them.

“One. Now relax your palms. Bend them in half if you can.”

She folds her fingers ninety degrees where they attach to her palms. The ache relents.

“Five. Bend your fingers, Pidge.”

He doesn’t count, but she is already complying as if he had. Her fingers enfold his hand instead of crushing it.

“I think you can open your eyes now,” Lance says.

When she does, his face is below hers. He must have dropped to a crouch at her side when she closed her eyes before. She swallows against a tickle in her throat.

“What—why--?”

“Why did you just have a panic attack?” Lance supplies. “Pidge, you’re _tired_. You’re stressed. You’ve been stretching yourself too thin. Not sleeping enough, consuming too much caffeine.”

 _There is no such thing as too much caffeine_ , she thinks, her resentment on behalf of her favorite food group the first bone-deep bit of relief she experiences.

“I’ve never had a panic attack,” she gulps. She really hasn’t. This is totally new. She scowls at the electrodes visible behind Lance’s ears, acutely disappointed they weren’t on her. The data might be useful. Paugh and she need the readings.

“Take it from someone who’s had several,” Lance advises. “Go slow. Keep breathing.”

“I’m okay,” she says, shaking her head. Her vision has glitter on the edges.

“Like fun,” Lance scolds.

“You never said you had panic attacks.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

She glares at him but takes a full dobosh’s worth of slow, purposeful breaths while maintaining the eye contact. Her heart, forced into compliance by the controlled expansion of her ribcage, also slows. Expertly, Lance places two fingers over the pulse point on her wrist. She watches the skin lift and fall over the movement of the artery underneath.

“You never said you had panic attacks,” she repeats, forcing herself to sound collected.

“Hmm? What?” He is distracted counting her pulses.

“Panic attacks?”

“What about them?”

“When did you last have one?”

Lance looks up from her wrist, still mouthing numbers, nodding along to her heartbeat. “What?”

“Panic attacks. When did you last have one?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Uh, never?”

“You just said—” she cuts herself off, bites her lip. “Never mind.”

“What?” Lance’s brow creases with worry. “What did I say?”

Pidge’s mind isn’t working as well as she would like, but she can still recognize the fruitlessness of this cycle. So she attempts another approach.

“You were telling me how you learned to help someone with panic attacks.”

“Oh!” Lance brightens, relieved. With confidence, he says, “Allura has them.”

Pidge snorts, claps a hand over her mouth. Her upper lip has sweat on it. When had that happened? Lance brushes the back of his hand over her hairline and comes away wet.

“When?” Pidge’s brain might be on the fritz, but some part of her rejects the image of Allura—regal, kindly, fierce Allura reduced to this, to a shivering, sweaty, nauseated mess. Maybe that’s her bias showing, but no part of her wants to admit their heroic friend suffered this way.

“She had her first one right after we lost Alfor’s AI,” Lance continues, mopping her brow and pretending disgust as he wipes his hands on her shirt. “She hadn’t really processed losing Altea until then. They happened every so often after that. Usually when we lost one more piece of her past.”

That applies to so many things. Surely one of them would have noticed. Shiro had panic attacks, or something like it. Maybe it wasn’t called the same thing with PTSD. But they usually noticed those—or Keith did and told them. Did Lance know about Allura’s attacks because he was the only one paying attention? Was he the only one she let see that side of herself? Did she think the Paladins would assume she was weak?

Or was Lance proving an unreliable source of information again? He had just contradicted himself on the subject of whose panic attacks were at issue here. Could Coran confirm it was Allura? Would Allura have leaned on him before she trusted Lance enough to let him help her? She would have to contact Coran. He could provide the answer. Maybe.

 _You and your maybes_ , she hears in her head, a hesitant smile curving along her bloodless lips. If her mind is working well enough to overthink, the panic attack must be fading. She’ll have to do some more research to be sure. Just in case.

“Do you remember the last time she had one?”

“She’s dead, Pidge,” Lance grumbles.

Between a panic attack and this, Pidge’s brain is teetering close to an edge with an abyss below it. If this is what Lance feels like all the time, no wonder he’s miserable. The swap between present- and past-tense about Allura must be significant, but she has no resources for assigning value to it.

“Sorry,” she mutters.

“You guys keep acting like I’ve forgotten that,” Lance says. His attempt at faux outrage only comes across as petulant as he sinks backwards to lean his weight on both his hands and kick his legs out in front of him.

“To be fair, sometimes, we wonder.”

Lance jerks his head back. “Wow. Brutal, Pidge.”

“You said you liked that I was honest.”

“I guess I should say ‘thank you,’ then.”

“No problem.” She squirms in her seat, embarrassed in the aftermath.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lance offers from the floor. “You’ve seen me through worse, Pidge. I won’t say anything to the others.”

“I know you won’t,” she lies. He won’t _mean_ to if he does, and if he does, the others might follow her line of thinking and assume it to be delusion. The harder part will be schooling her face so she doesn’t accidentally confirm his statement for truth.

“Can I ask _you_ something?”

Pidge shrugs. She would prefer not to, but after weeks of interrogation, she supposes it’s only fair. “Okay.”

“Sometimes it helps stop or reduce the effects of the attack to identify the trigger. Do you remember what you were thinking right before it happened?”

Falling. That’s what she had been thinking about. Falling. More than that, though. Unfortunately, the war against the Galra had occasioned her seeing her friends take more than their fair share of tumbles. She had woken up to find them unconscious or concussed close enough to it. They had been magically suspended in time here and there, too. Her entire body shudders at the onslaught of memories, of the panic she felt then being renewed in this now. It wasn’t falling or unconsciousness that was the problem. That was just a sign of what really terrified her, what had terrified her since she was fourteen and learning that her father and brother might be ashes and dust in the cold vacuum of space.

“Fragility,” is her answer. “I was thinking of how fragile we are.” She sucks in a breath. “That _you_ are.”

Lance winces. “Pidge—”

She roars over his halting objection. “Lance, you _passed_ out today and I had to catch you.”

He scratches his cheek, his face screwed up with confusion. “Thanks?”

“No, you don’t get it. _I_ caught you. Not Hunk, not Keith, not even Veronica. I caught you and I could hold you up.”

Lance is slow to come around to her point. “No chance you’ve been working out lately, is there?”

“Between the scans and the consults and everything else? No.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re not gaining any weight.” One look at his face would have said as much. The blue of his facial markings is bruise-purple where it pulls over the dark rim of his eye sockets. Hunk and Veronica were supposed to be ensuring that he maintained and gained weight. Another reason to yell at them later.

Lance sits up, holds out his arms in front of him and examines them. He makes a circle with his index finger and thumb and frowns when the tips of his fingers touch when he places them around his wrist. The bony projections on the inside of his elbows—her brain, working faster now, supplies _medial epicondyles_ —seem visible through the thin skin and fine hair on his arms. Every blood vessel stands out as if his skin were vacuum-sealed over them.

He keeps staring at himself as he speaks. “Pidge, what happens if I keep losing weight?”

An academic exercise with an edge, she informs him, “You’ve already lost all the fat you can afford to lose, and a good amount of skeletal muscle, too. After that, your body will have to take from other muscles, like your heart or your diaphragm, to keep your brain alive.” She does not add, given his level of emaciation, likely that has already happened to some degree.

Lance exhales slowly. “So I _am_ going to die.” He sounds like he’s tasting the words for truth. Distressingly, he does not seem to dislike the flavor of them.

“No,” she whispers, then, more vehemently as her vision whites out at the periphery, “You’re not going to die, Lance. We are going to figure this out. I promised you and I keep my promises.”

She clenches and opens her fingers, dry swallowing against an unpleasant heave from her stomach. He doesn’t contradict her outright, proving he does have some intimate and accurate information about panic attacks, whatever its source. He holds her gaze, slows his breathing until hers follows after.

Gently, after several ticks of just listening to both of them breathe, he says, “You called me _fragile_. I’ve heard that about my ego before, but, well,” he gestures to himself, “this is something else.”

She persists. “If you can’t absorb calories properly, we can always supplement you with intravenous nutrition.” 

Keith would be retrieving that for them shortly. There was still time, and non-parenteral nutrition might provide a clue. If he couldn’t sustain himself on food but could intravenous support, then that’s _another_ physical derangement to examine for clues, in addition to the markings and his being cold all the time. She turns back to her console, trembling fingers flying as she calls up references—anatomy, physiology, and nutrition references, information to stave off a fresh wave of threatening hysteria. With Keith’s help, she can place an IV line _today_. They should have done it earlier.

Behind her, still on the floor, Lance coughs. “We might have to face the inevitable here, Pidge.”

Pidge spins around on her chair. She tilts her head in a way that she knows will hide her eyes behind the glare of the light on her glasses. She’s been told it’s very intimidating—from Keith, no less. “Never say that again.”

Lance gulps and nods without protest. She nods curtly in response and returns to her screens. As though the last five doboshes—no, _twenty_ , wow, time dilation with anxiety, something worth studying when she has time—never happened, the holographic interface still shows the fMRI images. In one corner, the monitoring devices blandly continue to describe nothing so much going on with Lance, physically. Just one more way data is letting her down and lying to her, she thinks with a grimace.

Lance, weakly, jokes, “I can’t believe my heart’s killing itself to keep my busted brain alive.”

“That’s how bodies work,” she grunts.

“Well, this body sucks. Brain, too,” Lance grouses. “I want a new one. Ask Shiro if he--”

He doesn’t finish. She assumes it’s because he’s embarrassed to be making light of Shiro’s whole clone-body mess.

She knows she’s assumed wrong when the happily boring monitoring parameters become a lot more interesting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1) I do not support Pidge’s dismissal of psychiatrists and doctors in general. Her opinions are formed from frustration, lack of sleep, and too much coffee. My brother is a psychiatrist. I love mental health workers. They’re good folk who work hard on the most frustrating cases. This is a space fantasy wherein human psychiatry is challenged by specific circumstances, not an inherent inability to do good work. And, like I said, Pidge’s low opinion of the intelligence of others is unique to her.
> 
> 2) I have dabbled in representing several mental illnesses in this story and have strived to represent the reality of them (with fudge factors for, again, space fantasy). From comments I’ve received, I don’t always hit the mark. I apologize if my representation of panic attacks does not gel for people experiencing them, and, as always, welcome constructive criticism about how to improve in future.
> 
> 3) Likewise, panic attacks do not make a person weak. Pidge’s fears about what Allura may or may not have been afraid of with her own attacks (whether or not they happened, heh) are her own, not a judgment of people who suffer panic attacks.
> 
> 4) Lance’s suggestions for how to relieve a panic attack are ones that seem best supported by the literature I’ve read. I’d be interested to hear what other people do.
> 
> Next up: Shiro repeats some destructive patterns.


	9. the centre cannot hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro repeats some destructive patterns.

Less than ten years ago, if Shiro had planned on spending much time in a hospital, he would have assumed he would be the one in the bed, not the one waiting—restless, helpless, sleepless—in the chair beside it. He is glad he is already sitting when he redoes his mental math. Yes, less than ten years. What a difference a decade made.

The coffee helps make the not sleeping more tolerable, but being awake in a hospital, with his history, is not something caffeine alone can fix. Pidge and Hunk went to conference with the doctors, and Keith took Veronica to, finally, break the news to hers and Lance’s parents. So Shiro took first watch, some five voice comms ignored from Curtis—and as many over again in text—ago. He knows he will have to switch out soon. He can’t leave yet. They agreed; they aren’t leaving Lance alone.

They’re also not calling what happened a seizure.

Pidge explained why, at length, after Lance was stabilized at the hospital. The brain-wave monitoring didn’t suggest a pattern of rapid-fire, contradictory signals sent across his brain at the time of collapse.  Luckily for them, the emergency clinician and then the neurologist concurred with her and decided her wealth of patient data was worth tolerating her intrusions and opinions on their case. Shiro shudders to think of what would have happened if they deigned to ignore her.

What’s happening now, even as Shiro stands—or sits, in this case—sentry definitely _are_ seizures. Myoclonic seizures causing constant, rhythmic misfires of stimuli to his muscles. Lance is unconscious, his EEG minimally active since it crashed earlier in the evening in Pidge’s office, but his shoulders and chest give periodic jerks.

Shiro knows from personal experience that the likelihood of recovery is proportional to the volume at which doctors and nurses talk about their patient and inversely proportional to the number of machines a patient is attached to in order to live. Lance’s doctors barely speak above a whisper, and there are, in his estimation, no less than five machines in the room. So it’s bad.

“It’s okay, Shiro,” a croaking voice disturbs his brooding. Shiro looks up to find Lance has his eyelids cracked the merest sliver, his dark blue eyes sliding in Shiro’s direction.

Shiro’s knees almost give out as he launches himself at the bed. “Hey!” He exclaims, then lowers his voice, “How are you feeling?”

Lance’s breath comes in gasps between the twitches still shaking his upper body. “Been. Better.”

“I feel you,” Shiro says, reaching carefully around the IV lines and oxygen monitor on Lance’s finger to clasp the back of his hand. “You want some water?”

Lance’s chin falls closer to his chest, as close to a nod as he can manage. Shiro offers him a glass with a straw. Between twitches of his chest, Lance manages to sip a few mouthfuls. Shiro is careful not to let him have too much. He doesn’t want to mis-time this and have him choke.

“Better?”

“Mm.” Lance hums, his eyes sliding closed. “What happened?”

That is a matter of debate for the doctors. Shiro says only, “You passed out again. We brought you to the hospital.”

Lance opens his eyes to squint at the back of his hand where an IV line is bringing him fluid—to correct dehydration or supply him with energy, Shiro isn’t sure which. He pinches his eyes shut again, puffs out his cheeks as though nauseated. Could be from the drugs, could be from the general ill-health, could be from the sea-sickness of his vision shifting with each muscle spasm.

“This,” he says, his chest lurching like it’s being kicked from the inside, “‘s new.”

“Seizures,” Shiro can confirm. “Just focal ones. It’s probably to do with electrolyte imbalances.” He is parroting words but imbuing them with willful confidence so they sound less harsh.

It doesn’t work. Lance wheezes, “And Pidge said I wasn’t dying. Guess she’s not a genius after all.”

“ _Lance_ ,” Shiro makes his next words an order, “You are not dying.”

“Guess you would know,” Lance hiccups. He fixes Shiro with a pitying gaze. “It’s okay, Shiro. It’s okay if I am.”

Lance’s pupils are blown-wide, and redness encroaches from the corners into the whites of his eyes. His lids droop. Vaguely, Shiro recalls a nurse saying it was a side-effect of the medications being given at a constant rate to control his seizures, medications that clearly are not working from the way Lance continues to shake apart. Shiro shivers; aside from the redness, he’s only seen those eyes in dead men.

Shiro stutters, “N-no, it isn’t. I’m not losing any more friends. Not for a long while. You’re going to have to try harder.”

Lance’s habitual slight grin slides off his face towards one side. “I think—” he cuts himself off, working very hard on his words for a full dobosh before continuing, “I think it’s the trying that gets me into trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

Lance sighs, the seizures breaking up the sound into little puffs. “I was fine as long as I was just crazy. I keep trying to get better, and stuff like this happens.” He lifts one finger, waves it back and forth to encompass his herky-jerky body.

Shiro feels out this hypothesis for holes. Lance had been well-medicated and struggling for years, apparently, so it’s an exaggeration to say he was “fine.” But failing to be sane and ending up unconscious in the hospital differ by orders of magnitude. He still doesn’t feel like this theory holds water.

“So not wanting to get better…will make you better?”

“I’m never getting better, Shiro.”

The roiling spasms of his chest have tilted his limp neck such that his head rolls away from Shiro. Not one week ago, Lance was protesting he was not suicidal. Now, Shiro can believe he wasn’t. Because this, now, is what it looks like when he gives up.

And Shiro won’t have it.

“You will.”

Shiro reaches gently for Lance’s chin and applies the slightest pressure. He leaves Lance room to fight him, and if he resisted, Shiro would stop. He doesn’t, he lets Shiro turn his slack face with its dull eyes back towards him. Shiro flashes him a determined grin and nods. He also tips the water glass towards Lance again. Obliging, Lance sips the rest of the glass dry before pushing it and Shiro’s hand away.

“It’s okay. You’ll be okay without me,” Lance says, swallowing between seizing. “Plenty of universes. I’m not important in any of them.”

“You’re important in _this_ one,” Shiro insists. “And even if what you were saying was true, then it’s even more important that you don’t give up. Don’t argue with me. I’m told I can be very stubborn.”

Lance chokes on a sob, and rolls, extends a hand to grab the railing on his bed so he can curl up, still shuddering, onto his side. Shiro steps back to dispose of the water glass, then folds himself around him, holds him even as his body rocks to its own off-kilter, stochastic beat.

“I’m so tired,” Lance mumbles. “Every time I think I can pull myself together, I just…I feel like I come apart even more.”

Shiro gulps at the air, hot and humid where they are circled around each other, his tongue feels swollen and useless in his mouth. He focuses on settling his breathing into a deep and steady rhythm, feels Lance matching it.

“You can rest,” Shiro murmurs. “We’ll be here to take care of you.”

“Don’t have to,” Lance burbles, already drifting off again, convulsing even as his eyelids slip closed.

“Gonna,” Shiro counters, playfully.

“Thanks, Shiro,” Lance says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I’m sorry,” he persists, clutching at the fabric of Shiro’s jacket. He strains to speak, takes panting breaths as he pushes the words out. “I’m sorry you always suffer. Every one of you. Maybe if I…maybe I can fix that. I’ll try.”

“Don’t worry about me. You just focus on getting better. Okay?”

Lance doesn’t answer. Shiro wants to ask a thousand questions, but he bites his lips and lets his friend surrender to drug-induced slumber. He can’t push too hard, not right now. He swears to himself that there will be time later. For now, if sleep is what Lance needs, or what the drugs are giving him, then Shiro will let him have it.  

Shiro straightens, as does the hair on the back of his neck. He turns toward the doorway to see Keith slouching in it, one shoulder braced on the frame. Shiro shuffles towards him, tips his chin to indicate that Keith should follow. They’ve put this off for long enough, and if Keith is here already, soon the rest of the family will be. They need to have this out now. He glances back once over his shoulder, sees the fluorescent light reflected along the curve of Lance’s cheek. At this angle, he can see how Hunk and Pidge thought the markings there were glowing. How willful or mistaken glances might have convinced them of something more spectacular than the fact their friend was gravely ill.

Keith walks ten feet down the hall away from the open door to Lance’s room. His head hangs low, hiding his eyes behind his bangs as he girds himself for a lecture by digging the fingers of his one hand into his opposite shoulder. Shiro has the worst sense of déjà vu. Keith can live to be a hundred—half-Galra, likely he will—but he will never shake the habits of his sixteen-year-old self, it seems.

“All right, say it,” Keith grouses.

Goaded despite himself, Shiro rumbles, “If you know what I’m going to say, why don’t you just tell me?” He blames his short temper on too little sleep.

Keith grimaces. “You think this is my fault.”

Shiro takes a deep breath. They cannot have this conversation start on this note. He draws on years of teaching Keith, admonishing him, to find the right words. Keith has never been recalcitrant or hostile towards constructive criticism—at least not from Shiro. What is usually most effective is to give him space to appreciate the depth of his mistake but not to let him wallow in it. When Keith hates himself, he takes that self-loathing nowhere productive. He made a mistake, but he cannot hold the burden of responsibility alone, and Shiro cannot lose two friends to misery in one day.

“Keith, you didn’t make him sick. That isn’t your fault,” Shiro says, leaning in to pull Keith’s hand away from where he is surely giving himself bruises on his upper arm. He gives Keith’s hand a squeeze before dropping it. This is a familiar strategy for him—using touching and reassurance to soften a blow—albeit one he hasn’t utilized in a while. Keith knows it, too; he tenses, anticipating the next part.

“But you pulled him out of the hospital where he could have gotten help. This might mean he takes longer to recover. Or worse.”

Not a superstitious man, Shiro still does not dare voice aloud what “worse” entails.

“You are going to have to live with the repercussions of your actions,” Shiro finishes. He can’t leave it there, though. Keith is only as responsible as the rest of them. “We _all_ will.”

Keith’s head jerks up, defiance and hurt written in his violet eyes, but not on his own behalf. This, too, is a familiar pattern. And he knows what Keith’s objection is before he voices it.

“No, Shiro. This is on me. This isn’t your—”

Shiro shakes his head, which is enough to cut Keith off. “It’s on _us_.” His tone brooks no argument, but he elaborates, “Keith, I helped justify what we did, taking and keeping him out of the hospital. When he passed out the first time, I could have called Gateway Central and gotten him taken back in a second. I didn’t.”

And, he does not add, he could have. Keith might have been capable of utilizing Kosmo to take Lance out again, but he would never have done it if Shiro asked him not to—if he could have found a way to cajole, persuade, or outright command Keith to leave him there. He knows, however far they’ve grown apart following the war, that that is still within his power. Just like he knows that reprimanding Keith is pointless because Keith is beating himself up more. Shiro sweeps Keith into a hug, the second in as many days, to drive home the point. Keith’s chin rests on his shoulder, Shiro’s against his ear. He pretends he cannot feel his long, wet lashes smudged against his neck.

“The McClains are talking to the doctors now, but they’re maybe five minutes behind me,” Keith whispers into Shiro’s ear as he attempts to pull away.

Shiro holds fast to him. He is weary in a way that no amount of caffeine can alleviate but that this embrace is pushing to the periphery of his mind.

“I’ll talk to them,” Shiro promises.

“It might be better if we didn’t,” Keith insists, pushing harder against Shiro’s chest. Shiro lets him escape this time.

“I need to tell them and the doctor that he spoke with me,” Shiro says and then summarizes the general outline of Lance’s words in his brief period of lucidity. Keith’s miserable expression further sours as he processes the information. Shiro shifts to stand next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, ready to present a united front and to have any and all hope of his own rub off on Keith. He needs it. Shiro wills him to absorb it.

“It’ll be okay,” Shiro says. Standing next to Keith, he is certain they can make it so. Have they ever failed when they worked together?

The mechanical doors at the end of the corridor swing open. A deeply tanned, rakishly handsome older man with an ebony horseshoe moustache guides a shorter, plump woman with a passing resemblance to Veronica through the doors. They are accompanied by the neurologist whose name Shiro does not recall. Pidge and Hunk, who had gone with the doctor earlier, are not with them, nor is Veronica. Shiro squares his shoulders; beside him, Keith closes the gap between them as he does the same.

Rosalie and Sebastian McClain, guided by the doctor, brush by them without stopping. Even at a respectful distance outside the room, Rosalie’s wails are distinct and heartbreaking, her husband’s susurrations in Spanish and English punctuating each one.

Keith leans in to say, under his breath, “Go home, Shiro. I can stay.”

Shiro shakes his head, refusing out of habit and obstinacy. “I’ll stay.”

Keith seizes his Altean arm, lifts it to tilt the display interface in his direction. Shiro squints at it. It’s two-thirty in the morning. And he now has _sixteen_ comms unanswered from his husband. He raises one eyebrow. Keith returns it, his lips pursed together.

“You’ll tell them?” Keith nods. “Okay, one hour,” Shiro swears. He needs a change of clothes and a shower. That won’t take long. No fight worth having with Curtis will be able to happen tonight—this morning—anyway.

“But…your anniversary,” Keith demurs.

“I’ll have others,” Shiro counters. What anniversaries Lance might celebrate in the future are less certain. It isn’t a contest as to which one he’ll prioritize tonight.

****

Words are hard, but Shiro’s face tells the whole story as his front door swings open while he is still fumbling with his keys. Curtis is fluent enough in his body language not to pry. Hands that were clenched with worry and anger help Shiro shuck his jacket, then shell him out of his other clothes, and push him into a steaming bath. Shiro does not resist, and that alone propels Curtis to join him in the bath. Even in retirement, Shiro has a lot more muscle mass than Curtis, but that doesn’t stop his husband from drawing him into his arms, Shiro’s back against his front. They rest like that for long enough that Shiro dozes under the soporific effect of hot steam and wakes from a nightmare to tepid water.

The dream fades he startles awake. Hazy outlines of it remain, enough to send shivers along Shiro’s spine. He dreamt of a boundless nowhere that reminded him of the consciousness of the Black Lion. That alone has been the subject of many of his dreams, but this one is different. It’s not about his lingering anxiety over being trapped, voiceless and bodiless, in the dark, alone. The void was lit as bright as desert at noon, and he wasn’t alone. The details fade on waking, but what he recalls most vividly is the bright light illuminating a butchered body, held aloft by its own sinew. It was wearing Paladin armor but no helmet. The light surrounding it obscured the color. Just as he was about to approach, to see the face—or what was left of it—he woke.

He tries to rise quickly, but Curtis holds him fast. He could break free, if he tried, but Curtis isn’t holding him to restrain him, only to tether him.  Pressing down on the surge of adrenaline, he asks, “How long was I out?”

“Only an hour,” Curtis supplies.

That does not gel with Shiro’s internal sense of time, but a lot of his senses are dull with stress and grief and thus not to be trusted. Curtis shifts so Shiro’s weight bears down less on his thighs.

“Sorry.”

“Forget it,” Curtis forgives him. After a tick, he says, “It’s bad,” knowing full well the answer.

“Yeah,” is as much as Shiro will risk saying, lest his words become prophesy instead of report.

“I’m so sorry, love,” Curtis murmurs, kissing his temple.

Shiro savors the connection then breaks it, rising to leave. Sixty doboshes of rest and restoration are sixty more than he intended to take when he came home to change his clothes and shower. Out of the water, his Altean arm floats back to his side. He checks the time. Two hours, not one. He struggles to attribute to mistake and not to intent Curtis’ underestimating the time, and mostly succeeds, landing at irate instead of furious. No messages, which is either good news or everyone is too busy to tell him bad news. He decides to hope for the former. It’s all he can manage right now as he towels himself off.

“Takashi,” Curtis says slowly, not following him but catching his left wrist. “Don’t. You won’t be any good to your friends if you run yourself down as well.”

“I need to go. I told Keith I’d be back in an hour,” Shiro persists, shaking him off, indifferent to Curtis’ frown. Later, he’ll apologize for his ingratitude, for a whole host of things. For now, he must keep moving or he’ll stop for vargas more. He’s already lost too much time when anything could be happening. He marches mechanically through the bedroom, opens and shuts drawers a few times before picking out something almost identical to the outfit he was wearing before.

Curtis comes in a few doboshes later, wearing a bathrobe. He drapes himself along Shiro’s back, massages the muscles that have tensed up again already since the bath.

“Stay a while longer,” Curtis pleads. “You need to rest.”

“I need to be at the hospital.” He stands to pull his socks on and to remove himself from the temptation to accede to Curtis’ suggestion.

“What good will you being there do?”

“I’ll be there,” he replies, as if that makes sense. In his head, it does. He cannot be anywhere his team are not. Not now. Not if— if something bad is going to happen.

Curtis hugs his own chest, shakes his head. “You can’t do anything for him. I know that scares you. I know it makes you feel helpless. I get it. But this isn’t good for you.”

Everything Curtis says is true, and none of it is helpful. Shiro walks out of their bedroom and heads to the kitchen to scrounge up a box of protein bars and an energy drink that promises to be equal parts sugar, caffeine, and an aftertaste of metal. He reconsiders and grabs several of the energy drinks. The others will want them, too. All of it, he deposits into a satchel along with his padd.

He is putting on his second shoe when Curtis emerges from the bedroom. From the crease in his husband’s brow, Shiro knows a fight is on the horizon. Again. He has managed to do something to upset Curtis again, and, _again_ , it’s because Curtis is upset _for_ him. Which makes him feel worse than if Curtis were just plain pissed _at_ him.

Curtis loses his battle with patience and says, “You cannot keep doing this.” When Shiro doesn’t respond, Curtis comes a little more unglued. “Shiro, this has got to stop. You cannot keep running after trouble like you’re the only one who can stop it.”

“My friend,” Shiro growls, “is in the hospital. He could be dying for all I know.”

Curtis shakes his head. “And there is nothing you can do to stop that.”

“I won’t leave him alone.”

“He won’t be alone. You said it yourself: Keith is there.”

“Keith hasn’t slept any more than I have,” Shiro counters.

“Then he should go home, too,” Curtis pleads, crossing the distance between them and capturing Shiro’s cheeks in his hands. “Shiro, this is not healthy—”

“I’ll eat a better breakfast and do an extra mile on my jog _later_.”

“Takashi!” Curtis yells. “Stop being facetious and listen to me.”

Curtis losing his temper settles Shiro’s own. “I am listening,” he says, bored. “I’ve heard you. You disagree with everything I’m doing and want me to—what? Cuddle with you in bed while my friends are all doing something?”

Undaunted, Curtis presses, “Doing something? Didn’t you say Katie Holt had a panic attack?”

Shiro curses under his breath; he shouldn’t have said anything to Curtis, but it was justification enough to abandon their anniversary dinner at the time. Shiro’s lack of immediate response emboldens Curtis. He leans in to kiss him; Shiro ducks his chin to the side at the last second and Curtis’ lips end up on his cheek.

When Shiro glances at Curtis from the corner of his eyes, his husband is frowning, eyes moist with unshed tears. “Shiro, you and the rest of them are _already_ stretched thin. If you don’t stop, you’ll end up in the hospital, too.”

It’s a low blow, using Shiro’s own fears against him. He wraps his hands around Curtis’ wrists, removes his hands from his face. Saying a quick prayer to any and every deity there is, he swallows his frustration.

“I know I’m worrying you. But I need you to understand why I need to do this—”

“I understand—”

Shiro lays a finger over Curtis’ lips. “And to support me.”

Curtis grunts, pulls back from Shiro’s hand. “I support you better than you do yourself, love.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Shiro concedes. “I still have to be there.”

He slides on his jacket, shoulders hunched and ready for the ultimatum. This would be the time for it, when Adam would say something that started with his name and ended with “or else.” He waits.

It doesn’t come. Instead, when Shiro checks over his shoulder, Curtis radiates wounded disappointment, which tips the scales against making a reasonable response, so he says nothing while he fishes his keys out of his coat. Shiro hasn’t had a parent for more than half his life, and he’s not looking for one now, certainly not in his husband. He doesn’t need this patronizing assumption that Curtis knows more about what’s better for him than he does. Shiro debates a deliberate show of defiance, like removing the comm that is integrated into his arm and dropping it on the hall table—or, even more dramatically, on the floor—as he leaves. But he needs the comm. Even in the short distance between his home and the hospital, the situation could change. He doesn’t want to be out of touch with anyone. Except, in this moment, possibly, with his husband.

If it comes to it, there are ways around that. He keeps the comm.

“I’ll call you later tonight,” Shiro says, not looking behind him as he walks out the door.

His comm buzzes before he reaches his driveway. It’s Pidge. He activates the receiver, apologies at the ready.

“Pidge, I’m sorry, I’m on my way right now.” He jogs, still shoving his arms through his second jacket sleeve.

“Don’t rush,” she warbles, sniffling.

Shiro stops in his tracks. “Pidge—”

“He’s in a coma.”

Coma. Shiro’s stomach settles around his ankles at the word, but his heart beats a defiant, absurdly optimistic tattoo. Coma isn’t dead. Shiro’s been in a coma, or nearly—whatever it was when he first escaped the quantum abyss of the Black Lion. And it had been touch-and-go, but he had made it.

“Tell me everything.”

Pidge coughs, snorts loudly. Her voice is phlegmy with tears. “I was talking to Reich—the neurologist,” she adds when Shiro is quiet. “He thinks the dip in EEG readings when Lance passed out were because he was having a stroke. He’s become hypercoagulable with the dehydration and malnutrition—”

“And he threw a clot,” Shiro curses.

There were many reasons to hope Reich was wrong. Seizures weren’t exactly minor health issues, but a stroke was much more immediately and potentially permanently disabling. It also didn’t fit with what Shiro had seen. His grandfather had had a series of strokes before he died. He never really recovered between the first one and the one that eventually killed him, even though, per the doctors, it had been a minor one. His grandfather hadn’t remembered who Shiro was, kept calling him Kaito—his grandfather’s younger brother, to whom Shiro knew he bore an uncanny resemblance—and eventually lost the ability to form words altogether. Lance had been woozy from medication and exhaustion, but completely mentally and physically present when he had spoken to Shiro. Okay, still having myoclonic seizures, still talking oddly, definitely depressed, but aware of his surroundings.

Shiro offers that as a counter-narrative to Dr. Reich’s. “I didn’t get a chance to tell him that Lance woke up before the McClains showed up. He seemed lucid when talking to me. Or, you know, as much as he gets these days.”

Pidge hums at this. “Keith told him. He said it was possible that he could recover if the blockage was temporary. And if it broke loose, it might have lodged somewhere else and done more damage.”

He can picture Pidge hanging her head. “Shiro, I don’t want to accept it either, but I’ve seen him. He’s not technically brain-dead, but he…he’s not waking up any time soon.”

“Katie,” Shiro breathes.

That does it. She bursts into tears on the comm. He listens to her gulp, hiccup, and squeak, hissing through her teeth, which chatter as she sobs.

“ _Katie_ ,” he repeats.

“It’s my fault,” she wails. “I shouldn’t have—I should have listened to you.”

As he had with Keith, he cushions the correction with a compliment. “You wanted to help him, I know you did, but he should have been at the hospital. Maybe we would still be in this position, but that would not have been our call. Do you understand?”

Pidge snuffles something like an assent.

“The best thing now is to stay out of the doctors’ way, give them any of the data you have if they ask you. I’ll be there shortly.”

Thus decided, his feet again obey his commands and take him in the direction of his hoverbike. He tosses his satchel in the storage compartment when Pidge murmurs something he doesn’t catch.

“What was that?”

“Should I tell them about the weird things he’s been saying?”

“I think they know about his diagnosis.” Presumably, his medical record is intimately and intricately detailed about his mental illness, and, if not, Pidge can supplement it easily.

“No,” she says, “like the weird stuff. Like him thinking Hunk and Shay are married or you adopting kids or how to measure quintessence.”

Shiro pauses in starting up his bike. “Quintessence measuring?”

Pidge blows her nose then says, “Yeah. When he first showed up in my lab, he gave me an idea for how to measure quintessence by avoiding gravitational dilations of spacetime. He has also been heavily implying you and Keith are fooling around, so you know.”

Shiro groans. He knows enough. He had hoped that the remarks at the wedding were drunken ramblings. He hasn’t really had time to reconsider that conversation in light of the new information about Lance’s schizophrenia.

“I may have heard some of that,” he says, aiming to be dismissive. If there’s more, he doesn’t want to know.

So, of course, Pidge tells him, “He kept bringing it up to Hunk on Allura Day, or so Hunk said.”

Shiro is glad to be alone and unseen as he feels blood rush to his cheeks when he asks, “Has he said any of this to Keith?”

“Probably,” Pidge confirms. “And there’s also his face glowing.”

Shiro redirects his mind from the mortification of Lance provoking Keith, even inadvertently, with the suggestion of a romantic relationship between them. There are too many swirling, contradictory, and confusing feelings on that subject to be helpful right now.

“I thought you said you couldn’t prove the markings were glowing?” He thinks back to the reflection he saw in the hospital. It was just a trick of the light. Surely.

“I couldn’t,” Pidge says slowly.

“But?”

“I never had time to fully adjust the readings from his face when he—”

She takes an audible breath, pauses long enough to launch into the rest of it without stammering. “The readings mostly caught the dead space on the EEG, but when I reviewed them with Reich, I think I picked up some electrical activity from his face. Something that couldn’t have been muscle movement because he wasn’t moving at the time. It was in the right area for the markings.”

“But you can’t be certain.”

“Eighty-five, ninety percent?”

For Pidge, that’s as good as “no.” At this point, though, Shiro isn’t prepared to leave any avenue unexplored, even one as farfetched as the phantom glowing that both she and Hunk swear they’ve witnessed.

“Tell the doctors,” Shiro suggests. “If nothing else, maybe they can consult with an Altean physiologist or that guy you know.”

“Paugh? Yeah, I can call him. I’ll get him and Coran here ASAP.”

“Coran?”

Pidge is quiet a long time. “Maybe it’s better if I tell you in person.”

Not a chance. “Tell me now.”

Pidge sniffs. “Reich told Lance’s parents that the odds of him waking up are slim. There was talk about—he gave them the option to…not wait to find out.”

Shiro holds his breath. The rebellious certainty that they could— _would_ —see Lance through this sinks a little.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I didn’t want to,” is Pidge’s simple reply. “I don’t want to believe it.”

Against his better inclination, Shiro must know what to expect when he gets back. “What did they say?”

“We’re in luck there,” Pidge says. “Mrs. McClain is Catholic, or she was raised that way or something. Even if he doesn’t wake up, they’re not going to pull the plug.”

“ _Quiznak_ , Pidge,” Shiro swears. This conversation is going downhill too fast for his head to hold onto his otherwise obstinate hope.

Pidge must worry about his tone because she warns him, “Shiro, take a taxi or something. Don’t drive. Or I can have Keith pick you up--”

“No,” Shiro says immediately, wincing at his harsh tone. The last thing he needs at this hour—with this much stress, with the fresh reminder that everyone and their neighbor seems to think he and Keith are a romantic item, and with his unhappy husband not five hundred feet away—is Keith teleporting in to carry him off. Too easy for that to be misunderstood in ways that neither he, Keith, nor Curtis will ever quite recover from.

Hastily, he covers with, “Keith should stay. Have Kosmo help retrieve Coran and your doctor friend. That’s the priority now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Be careful, Shiro.”

“Always,” he promises.

He ends the comm, starts another to request a ride, one that will arrive in ten doboshes. He has time, then. Time enough to go back and make a few apologies, shore things up, admit that he was wrong even if his plans aren’t changing.

Curtis is standing at the edge of the walkway.

“How long have you been standing there?”

Curtis holds his chin high, his chinks pink at being caught out. “He’s not waking up.”

Shiro deflates, sags against his bike. Curtis waffles, then decisively walks toward him, drawing Shiro’s head against his chest. Some part of Shiro still wants to fight, but too much of him is wounded by the bad news. He sinks into the embrace as he had done with Keith.

“I’m so sorry, love,” Curtis purrs against his ear.

“I’m sorry for being the way I am,” Shiro mutters, choking a few tears off before he can really make a mess of himself.

“I love the way you are.” He lifts Shiro’s chin with one finger. “I just don’t want you to drive yourself into an early grave. I want to keep you around a while.”

Shiro chuffs at this, slides away. Curtis makes no attempt to stop him. They wait, in silence, for his ride, long enough for a tentative, and definitely temporary, peace to settle over them.

“So,” Curtis teases, awkwardly, “you and Keith, huh?”

Shiro slaps his left palm over his eyes, drags it down his face. “Of course, you heard that, too.”

“I’ve heard it from others,” Curtis admits, attempting at a neutral tone and nearly succeeding. “If I were worried about it, I wouldn’t have married you.”

“Good.”

There is something else to say here, some confession or question or reassurance neither one of them makes. Shiro is uncertain if he should make a more robust denial, decides he shouldn’t since there is nothing to deny. Whatever his other insecurities about this relationship, Curtis has declared that he does not name Keith among them. So, for now, that’s enough.

The car pulls up. Curtis catches his sleeve before he ambles off down the driveway.

“We are going to have a serious fight later. You realize that, don’t you?”

Shiro nods. On this, at least, they are in perfect agreement.

Despite his acknowledging this fact, Curtis presses, “The sort that makes us or breaks us, Shiro.”

Shiro nods again, not trusting himself to speak right now. Curtis is right. If that should or would rankle him under other circumstances, it does not right now. He is numb to this particular threat.

This seems to get under Curtis’ skin, though. Dogged, Curtis says, “We both need to be rested and at our best when that happens. I promise I can wait until this—” he bites his lip, “until this is done to have that fight. But I can’t wait forever, okay?”

There it is—the ultimatum he had been waiting for since coming home. Without another word, Curtis heads back inside the house. Shiro stares after him until he switches off the outside light. He stumbles towards and slides into the car with the sinking feeling of loss, of ending.

The ride back to the hospital is a long one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Writing a sensible reason for Curtis and Shiro to fight is hard. But this was always my intention. Like I said way back in the beginning, this is a fix-it fiction that is still compliant with season eight. Curtis is a major error, part of several that complete the derailment of Shiro’s character. But I didn’t want to compound the error by making him a one-note, terrible partner. I still believe Shiro would have chosen him for a good reason. Or, if not “good” reason, then a reasonable reason. I have a lot of background on that relationship for a prequel/sequel.
> 
> 2) That doesn’t mean I don’t intend to break Curtis’ heart, y’all. It’s still a fix-it fic. I’d just like to do it in a way that doesn’t invalidate him as a character and, by the transitive property, Shiro as a character. Shiro has been a romantic failure for reasons other than he dated people who were bad or petty. I maintain that he does poorly with people who hold him to account for his self-destructive behaviors—or what they perceive as such. The people he has loved only want the best for him; when he disagrees as to what is best is when he gets into trouble. Shiro has a temper and is stubborn as all get out. He isn’t at all perfect.
> 
> 3) Another major issue of the series, not necessarily the ending, was the fact that Pidge could and did do as many crazy, selfish or self-serving things as ever Keith did, but only he was ever upbraided about it. I hoped with the previous chapters to show that their behaviors vis a vis taking care of Lance were similar and, while in their eyes, justified, in retrospect, were dangerous and short-sighted. I hope I captured that in Shiro’s reprimand to them both. It’s not that they are responsible if Lance dies, but they did not make the situation better, and that’s on them, sadly.
> 
> 4) The McClains never got names that I was able to find in the series. I gave them some. Happy to correct if someone knows better.
> 
> 5) Myoclonic seizures, strokes, EEG—god, I might as well go to medical school with Pidge at this point.
> 
> Next up: Keith meditates on failure and loss. It is an enlightening experience.


	10. the blood-dimmed tide is loosed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith meditates on failure and loss. It is an enlightening experience.

Not fifteen doboshes after Shiro went home, Lance’s mother hit the panic button in his room. The flurry of activity died only a full varga later when Lance was intubated and placed on a ventilator and moved to the intensive care ward. The limitations of visiting hours, as far as Keith could discern, were non-existent, but Mrs. McClain had all but fainted after the ordeal. Although she badgered her husband and Veronica about staying, they did not so much drag as support her out the door for the night. A coma, stabilized on every device known to medical science, was a steady thing, at least for a while. The McClains all needed sleep. They might not get much in the next few days as things went one way…or another.

Keith didn’t leave. Nor did Pidge or Hunk, though the latter fell asleep in the soft chairs of the waiting area. Pidge is more useful to the doctors and fervent about her research, and far more overworked than Keith, so he takes up the watch over Lance. She dives back into reviewing her data, catching Shiro up, and coordinating Coran and Paugh’s arrival on Earth. Keith has already sent Kosmo on ahead to speed things along. The wolf knows Coran. He’ll bring them back as swiftly as he can.

Watching Lance’s chest rise and fall in time with the ventilator helps him quiet his mind and the memory of ringing and flashing alarms. He remembers watching Lance and Shiro in healing pods, mourns the loss of the Castle of Lions anew. Allura might have been able to reverse-engineer that particular marvel of Altean alchemy. Coran was doing his best with the surviving Alteans from Lotor’s colony, but, for now, that marvel was lost to the universe.

Instead, a machine breathes for Lance. Another measures his heart rate. A third tracks the inactivity of his mind. Still another monitors his temperature. Yet another records the oxygenation of his blood. There are three fluid lines by Keith’s count, one for hydration, another for nutritional support, and a catheter connected to a bag strapped directly to Lance’s thigh. He’s buried under thermal blankets because the temperature gauge squawks in protest otherwise. The words “heat support” have been mentioned, although not intentionally in Keith’s hearing. He understands those are bad words.

Pidge explained that comas were lapses of consciousness that had nothing to do with the brainstem’s ability to regulate breathing, heart rate, and temperature. Those things—autonomic functions, she called them—should not be impacted by a coma. Lance needing help breathing and staying warm suggests more than consciousness has been affected by what the doctors have determined is a stroke or series of them. Hypothermia might actually prolong his life, but that is not discussed because it’s “prolonging,” not “saving” and no one wants to go there. Hunk is only sleeping to save up energy for taking over watch later in the morning. Pidge is still fighting, still researching and reading anything she can lay her bloodshot eyeballs on. Only Keith seems prepared for the inevitable.

“I think you’re dying,” Keith says aloud.

For once, Lance does not argue with him, but it seems like the ventilator pauses an extra tick after he speaks. It might be Keith’s sleep-starved brain seeing connections where there are none. Still, he holds his own breath until the pump deflates and, with it, Lance’s chest.

“I think I made it worse.”

He doesn’t argue with this either, and Keith’s cheeks burn with shame.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m sorry.”

Apology accepted. Or not. It makes no difference. Not one week ago, Lance was protesting about his mental well-being to doctors that wouldn’t listen, and Keith and Pidge were the pariahs for believing him. It’s hard to take a victory lap over Lance not being suicidal when it turns out his body was doing the dying for him.

Guilt and grief and agitation are a lousy combination for a sleepless night, so he tries to quiet his mind through meditation.

When he was fourteen, Keith first saw Shiro meditating. Of course, Keith was extremely fourteen about it, with a reflexively hostile and skeptical attitude about the whole production. So much about meditating was an anathema to him—the stillness, the self-reflection—that he did everything he could to disrupt Shiro. He mocked, he challenged, he derided. Shiro kept right on doing it. Since that didn’t work, he found another way to occupy the infernal time in which he could be alone with a non-interactive Shiro: Keith just watched him. He got really good at it, at starting from the top of Shiro’s head and following down his body in definite, repeated patterns. He would hold his breath until his heart slowed and he could feel his pulse match the one he could see on the inside of Shiro’s wrist. When, on the schedule of some unfathomable internal clock, Shiro would open his eyes and smile, some part of that peace he obtained from doing a whole lot of nothing rubbed off on Keith.

Watching Shiro became his meditation. It centered him, relieved him of some of the anxious tension he tended to carry in his upper back—that constant expectation of someone being disappointed in him and anticipation of the consequences of their disapproval. Tonight, he uses Lance’s even breathing for his reference. The the level rise and fall of his chest is thanks to artificial support from a ventilator, but it does the job.

Keith inhales in time with the ventilator, does this for several doboshes, moves his gaze along Lance’s body. His hair seems thinner, his skin paler, laid out on the white cotton pillowcase. His eyes are taped shut to keep them moisturized, the mask holding the breathing tube in place is strapped across his cheeks just below the Altean markings. If they ever glowed, they don’t now. The rest of Lance’s body is just as insubstantial, bearing every hallmark of a body on its way out of the physical universe.

Keith sucks in an unsteady breath and recommits to not thinking. He closes his eyes, watches his pulse streak across the inside of his lids, watches as it slows. The hardest part about meditating is the frustration of his mind refusing to follow his body into peace. There is probably irony there. Shiro always spoke of meditating as letting go of mental images. Keith, being Keith, favored forcible submersion of them. Into the recesses of his mind, therefore, go the agitation over his part in Lance’s downward spiral, the shame for disappointing Shiro, the grief at the impending loss of another friend for no apparent reason. The beeps and chimes of monitors fade away with everything else. When all is quiet for long enough, Keith opens his eyes.

He is no longer in the hospital.

More to the point, he is in a place he was sure no longer existed. An infinite void, a endless place with only the suggestion of depth, coordinate space, and a horizon to keep a mortal mind from going mad.

It is the mind of the Black Lion.

But that was impossible. The lions were gone. Once or twice since the war ended, Keith had tried to meditate and, in so doing, meander back into that place. Determination and desperation had gained him entry before. Perhaps he had not been this desperate since the war. The possibilities were endless. Keith is not a philosopher. He seems to be in a place like the quintessence connection to a sentient war machine believed to have disappeared from the universe. The how or why matter less.

Keith looks at himself. All appearance on the astral plane is a construct of the mind—in Keith’s experience, that of the mind wandering through it. Not so this time. He holds up his mental image of his own hand, looks down on the projection of his body, watches as it shifts like a broken comm transmission. One tick, he’s wearing the fingerless gloves and red jacket he favored as a teenager, the next his Red Paladin armor, still the next his Blade of Marmora uniform—his old one, when he was still a foot solider. Sometimes, all of these outfits overlay in patches. He focuses on willing what he was wearing in the hospital to manifest—a leather jacket, jeans, and thick boots—but the same panoply of configurations predominate.

So, maybe this place is different from the Black Lion’s mind, or, at least, has mixed feelings about how Keith manifests within it. The simplest answer is that Keith alone does not control his appearance. But if that is true, then someone else must be present with him. Although there is no up nor down, he lifts his chin, looks above his head as he calls out.

“Hello?”

In the mind of the Black Lion, there weren’t words, only thoughts and feelings condensed into the outline of speech; sound, he assumed, was only a memory. The first time he had entered this place, he had Shiro with him, guiding him, encouraging him. There is nothing around him for as far as his eyes can see, but the lack of sound, the lack of an echo of his own voice is the most claustrophobic feeling Keith has ever had. If this is what it was like to be alone here, it’s a wonder Shiro wasn’t more insane than Lance.

The thought— _Lance_ —changes the shape of the planescape around him and from darkness he is plunged into blinding light. Keith shies away from it as though it were searing his flesh, throws his arm up to protect himself. It does no good. The light bleeds through his eyelids because they are no more substantial than any other thing in this realm. He spins, trying to escape the light. It is everywhere around him, more like the relentless energy of quintessence field between realities than the mind of the lions. But that boundary between universes was a charged, dangerous place; even with nothing to see, you felt electrified and vibrantly alive. This is not that. This is quiet, loneliness, and abandon.

As suddenly as the light assaults him, relief, in the form of a shadow, falls over his face, turns the inside of his eyelids from red to black. He opens his eyes to squint at the trailing edge of a linear darkness on what passes for the ground in this place.

It isn’t as still as a shadow. The long fingers of darkness that cut through the stark whiteness all around him writhe in a way that reminds him of the pulsing of intestines. Which he knows about because war is Hell. Hand still up to deflect the brightness all around him, he walks alongside the wriggling shadows. They grow thinner and paler yet more substantial as he walks along, less an absence of light and more like a structure. Fragile, like a membrane, but still pulsing. He crouches low to examine it then lurches away, falling where there is no gravity.

It’s skin.

This is how Keith discovers nausea is also something this place can simulate. He doesn’t vomit, but it’s a near thing. Especially as he follows the strand of skin to where it joins to sinew, which in turn blends with muscle, then tendon, then bone. He startles when he realizes that strands of this ghoulish web stretch out in an infinite number of directions all around him. He walks through a forest of gore, somehow untouched by it. He follows one thread in this tapestry of flesh and compares it to another. They appear damn near identical. He isn’t certain if it’s literal or metaphorical—whether flesh and bone has been stripped from a creature of a thousand limbs or whether this magical realm has spit out a repeated variation on one.

At the center of the web, he has his answer. The bones, which started off as thick and sturdy, taper into phalanges, the fine bones of the foot and hand. They come together like chains, the last pointed digits digging into a humanoid form. It isn’t really a body, only an impression of one composed of a translucent energy along the contours of where a body would be. Where the bones sink into it, it bleeds starlight.

Hanging on this impression of a body is the armor of Paladin of Voltron. Blue armor.

Dread gnawing at his roiling guts, Keith looks up. The Paladin armor gleams in the incandescent light that surrounds it, brighter still juxtaposed against the dim impression of a body underneath. The outline of the body continues above the cowl of the armor, carving out the parody of a neck and head but no helmet. The only flesh and skin that exists, besides that radiating out in a plethora of carnage, is the face.

It’s Lance’s face. Of course it is.

His face hangs loosely off the mimicry of the rest of his body, like a dollar-store costume mask held in place by single elastic string. Except, in this case, it is held at the fraying edges by bony claws sunk into it. Otherwise, it’s him, a facsimile of the sleeping, fading visage Keith had left in the hospital, right down to the dim aqua of the chevrons on his cheeks.

“Lance?” Keith gulps.

Lance’s eyes open. They are pupil-less orbs of blinding light, the same as radiates all around the pair of them. His lips part a mere fraction, twitch only enough to show an intent to speak that never manifests as speech.

“Lance!” Keith shouts, startled out of horror-induced inaction. He leans in, presses a hand against the blue chest armor. “Can you hear me?”

Lance’s sightless eyes stare back, and his lips tremble, but no words, no hallucination of communication follows. Keith extends a hand, reaches up to put his fingers on Lance’s lips, as if to trace the words that won’t come.

Pain screams through him.

He jerks his whole arm back, the radiating agony following as his last fingertip leaves on Lance’s skin. It’s too much, all at once. It’s the buzzing of an electric shock, the sharp slice of a cut, the throbbing of a burn, the ache of a sprain, the splintering of a bone. Worse than all of those is the sensation of falling, the sucking vacuum that threatened to tear the essence of him out through the contact of his skin against Lance’s lips. Keith massages his hand, blinks as his fingertips alternate between the gloves of his various uniforms. The feeling fades as sharply as it had come on.

Keith glares at Lance’s body and his face, neither of which is more reactive than it had been. For science, he touches the fleshless imitation of his body. Pidge would either be proud of or exasperated by him when the unpleasant onslaught of torment repeats itself. Right, no touching Lance. But the armor is safe. He pushes at it. Lance does not budge; he may not have solid form, but he is stuck fast. Keith pulls. Same result. He changes strategy, throws himself at the web of bone and tissue, sinking fingers into them and trying to pry them loose. Despite their delicate, intricate connection, they do not give under his assault. He yanks hard, pulling them away from where they grip the approximation of Lance’s wrist.

It may be only in his imagination, but he hears the shattering of glass. A crack appears, running through Lance’s forehead, down his eyebrow and—Keith swallows against bile—across the center of Lance’s eyeball. More skin is lost from the periphery of his face, gobbled up by hungry bones. And then Keith understands: these fetters of flesh and bone are tearing his friend apart; if he pulls along the same vector, he does their work for them. He reverses course, seizes a cluster of bony links, and yanks desperately in the opposite direction, towards Lance.

A cacophony of wailing splits the silence of the void. It echoes all around Keith; he claps his hands over his ears instinctively. As soon as he lets go, the wailing stops. He risks a glance at his friend. No change. The crack still shatters the globe of Lance’s left eye, and most of that side of his face, but nothing worse than that. His lips still tremor around the shapes of words.

Right—no touching Lance, no pulling on the strings. If brute strength won’t work, there are other ways. Keith holds out his hand. If this is truly the quintessence field, then he should be able to conjure anything, including a weapon. Of course, he had no control over his appearance, so there is no way to know what to expect; he will settle for either of his favorites, his bayard or his luxite blade.

This place being what it is, he gets both, one fading into the other, just like his clothes. Luckily, they are both sharp. He swings at the chains of bone. The blades pass clean through, never even slowing down. Keith, off-kilter, follows along the momentum of his swing, tumbling into the web…

Keith barely catches himself on the heels of his hands as he hits the floor of Lance’s hospital room. Disoriented, he lays there for several ticks. Outside the door, he hears Hunk shriek, the thud of a body hitting the floor, grumbling from Pidge, and then footsteps as they stumble towards him.

Whatever dumb excuse he would have made for falling out of his quiznakking chair dies in the back of his throat. The other Paladins aren’t even looking at him. Dignity bruised but curiosity piqued, Keith hauls himself up from the floor.

Lance’s Altean markings are glowing. His heart rate monitor is also _screaming_.

*****

Shiro arrives twenty doboshes after the emergency team restarts Lance’s heart. The weariness that manifests as lines below his eyelids worsens as he is caught up on all the details. The lines deepen further when Keith adds the outlines of what happened during his meditation.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Pidge whines, tugging at the roots of her hair. “He can’t have been fine for _years_ and then start to die in the course of less than a quintant!”

Shiro ignores her tantrum and focuses on Keith. “You’re sure you saw Lance.” It isn’t a question, only a recount of the story Keith had told them of his dream. Or vision. He isn’t actually sure. What matters is that it is _true_.

“One-hundred percent,” Keith says, shuddering.

“Flayed?” Hunk squeaks, looking green.

“More or less,” Keith confirms, stressing the word _less_ for Hunk’s sake.

“That doesn’t fit with anything we’re seeing!” Pidge paces around, throwing her hands up over her head. “He wasn’t physically ill until recently!” She whirls around on her heels to stab her finger into Keith’s chest. “And how the quiznak could he have been awake if he was flayed!”

Like Shiro, she isn’t asking, but Keith is just as ready to respond as though she had.

“Awake is maybe the wrong idea,” Keith says. “Alert? Maybe?” Alert to something other than Keith, mostly, but in tune with whatever it was. Not insensate, not like he is in the here and now.

“His brain is _non compos mentis_ and nearly brain-dead to boot. He cannot have been awake,” Pidge insists.

Shiro, not distracted, continues, “And it looked like the quintessence realm? But also like the inside of the lions’ minds?”

Keith nods. In the logic of magical spaces, both could be true at the same time even though neither realm resembled the other. The mind of the Black Lion had been a star-lit space, a heavenly expanse without boundaries except for those human psyches placed on it. The quintessence realm had resembled bright clouds in a sunny sky, only it was boundless, depthless, electric, and nauseatingly void of any concept of gravity.

Pidge claps her hands, startling Keith out of the memory of his vision.

“Okay, I change my mind. It’s magic.” She laughs, the sound verging on hysterical. “His cheeks are glowing, and that’s got to be magic. I’ll take it.”

Shiro’s smile at this pronouncement is tentative and flighty but still heartening. “Pidge, are you saying _magic_ is the most logical conclusion here?”

“That’s what science does!” She exclaims. “When presented with contradictory evidence, the hypothesis has to change. Besides, what other choice do we have?” She pulls herself away from Keith, stretches, and pushes her glasses back up her nose. “Science is telling us that Lance is dying for no reason. Magic says there’s a reason.”

“Yeah, but not what that reason _is_ ,” Hunk grouses. “And without Allura, how the heck do we fight back against magic?”

Keith frowns, uncertain of how to answer that question. The entire paradigm of Lance’s illness has, in more than one way, shifted no less than a dozen times in the last forty-eight vargas. So, yes, magic, they have an answer, but Hunk is right that that doesn’t mean they have a _solution_. They don’t even know the _question_.

Luckily, for all of them, questions are where Pidge excels. And after ingesting half her body weight in caffeine, sugar, and desperation, she rattles off all of the relevant ones.

“If we want to know how to fight it, we have to know what is causing it. Does Lance have someone who has alchemical knowledge pissed at him? Some one or another of Honerva’s old colonists harboring a grudge? Maybe one of Haggar’s druids striking out at any Paladin they could? Lance travels a lot these days,” she pauses, winces, “or he did. Maybe he ran across one of them like we did on those ruins?”

Keith’s thoughts fly back in time to a dusty planet, some few quintants after they lost the Castle of Lions. There had been a Druid who had lured many Blades to their deaths using their own distress signal. All of it in revenge for its mistress, the woman who had forsaken it for her personal quest. He fishes for the sense of satisfaction he had at the time when he cut the monster down, wishes he could recapture it in this moment.

Pidge shakes her head correcting herself when no one else dares. “No, that doesn’t make sense. Keith travels further and into less stable territory all the time. If anyone wanted to attack a Paladin, he’d be the harder target to pass up.”

“He’s also a hard target, period. If someone came after Keith, they probably wouldn’t have survived it,” Hunk says, earnestly. Keith appreciates his vote of confidence. His cheeks only warm when Shiro nods enthusiastically with this assessment.

“Fair point. Okay, so someone with a grudge picks on Lance because he’s an opportune target and not as well able to defend himself as Keith. That could be any of us, really,” Pidge mutters.

Keith turns this theory over in his head. It has the benefits of simplicity and logic. The Paladins have no shortage of old foes who might want to lash out. Keith knows this better than the others, as he routinely works with some of those (now reformed) foes on a daily basis as part of the Blade of Marmora. Simplicity, however, does not fit with chronicity. Only the most patient, determined of enemies would be satisfied with driving Lance slowly crazy and settling for his eventual physical demise. Again, the Paladins have had such enemies, but this many years down the road? With none of them any the wiser?

And why stop at Lance? Even if the plan took longer than one of their antagonists intended, why not launch an attack against another target once it was clear Lance was succumbing? It’s what Keith would do. Prove the method for destabilizing the enemy works, then refine it and apply the same strategy with sharper edges to the next name on a list. Pidge and Hunk are by no means soft, but they’re vulnerable. They don’t work at keeping themselves sharp out of necessity, like Keith, or habit, like Shiro. But they’re fine. Only Lance has been affected.

“This is about Lance,” Keith says, brooking no argument. “It’s not about getting to any one of us. It’s always been about him. And him alone.”

Pidge folds her arms over her chest. “Which just brings us back to who would, a, have the resources to do that, and, b, why they are annoyed at Lance. And that’s only _if_ we agree that everything up to and including his physical breakdown is part of this attack.”

Hunk taps his lips thoughtfully. “There was that sea-worm thing that mind-swished all those mermaids. Lance and I destroyed it, but maybe it had relatives?”

“Then why haven’t they come for you?” Keith snaps. Hunk’s neck sinks into his shirt collar, trying to make himself small, as if to evade such a fate. “Sorry,” he mumbles. Losing his temper with Hunk helps no one.

“This is pointless,” Pidge hisses, tapping her foot impatiently. “It’s all speculation. We need more data.”

“How?” Hunk squints at her as if this will help him divine the answer.

“Simple: we go back into Keith’s meditation place and find out.”

Keith snorts. “ _I_ am not even sure how I got there. I don’t know how I’d get back, let alone with any of you.”

Shiro, who had been silently watching this entire exchange, clears his throat. “I might be able to help.”

All three of them turn their heads slowly towards him. Shiro has eyes only for Keith and his stomach churns with foreboding.

“Tell us what you saw again, Keith,” Shiro commands, and when Shiro commands, Keith cannot help but comply.

He opens his mouth to repeat the details of his reverie, but Pidge interrupts, “He told us already.”

“Not everything,” Shiro says.

Keith, dutifully, strings together the outline of his vision or hallucination or whatever it was, probing the edges of his memory for anything he forgot to mention. Lance, flayed, suspended like a forgotten marionette, his armor gleaming but his body existing on only the most superficial and ever-dwindling sense. The gruesome fetters made out of what Keith is now positive were his own body parts. His face cracking under the pressure Keith applied. Keith eyeball to eyeball with Lance as one of his eyes fractured.

“He wasn’t wearing a helmet,” Shiro says.

Keith nods then stops, his breath leaving him in a rush like he’d been gut-punched. He hadn’t said anything about Lance not wearing his helmet. He gapes at Shiro, whose lips and face have gone bloodless.

“Shiro—"

“I think… I think I saw him, too.”

Pidge lets out a howl of frustration, rounds on Shiro and lunges to shake him by his shirt front. “When did THAT happen!?”

Two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle shouldn’t tremble as easily as Shiro does under Pidge’s assault. Keith has an arm out to catch Shiro just as he stumbles backward to sit down, hard, on one of the plastic chairs in the hallway outside Lance’s room. He snatches at the back of Pidge’s shirt to keep her from ending up in Shiro’s lap. Shiro’s hands flutter where they rest on his thighs; the fingers of the Altean prosthetic jerk in rictus, odd-angle motions while those of his left clench and unclench.

Hunk drops into a seat next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Keith yanks Pidge out of the way so he can crouch at the level of Shiro’s knees. He covers both of Shiro’s hands with his own; they settle. Shiro takes a deep breath and meets Keith’s gaze.

“I was late getting back because I fell asleep. I thought—I thought I was dreaming.”

Pidge leans in, pushing down on Keith’s shoulders. “What were you dreaming? What did you see? Was it Lance?”

Shiro grimaces. “It was a body. And it looked like it was hanging. It definitely had Paladin armor on, but I woke up before I could tell whose it was.”

“You just had this dream tonight,” Keith clarifies. Timing, he understands, is crucial, and better he establish it than a caffeinated, stressed, and increasingly shrill Pidge.

“Yes.”

“Never before?”

“No.”

Keith sucks in a breath, tilts his head to his side where Pidge’s face is resting on his shoulder. “What about you?”

“Nope, no crazy dreams.”

Keith jerks his chin in Hunk’s direction. “And you?”

“I’d remember butterflied-Lance, so no.” He pauses, considers, then says, “Maybe it’s because we’re not—” Hunk waves vaguely in Shiro and Keith’s direction. “You know. Like you two.”

Keith narrows his eyes, instinctive defensiveness rising as a growl. “What does _that_ mean?”

Hunk gulps. “I just meant, like, how Shiro was in the Black Lion for so long. And you always had the best rapport with your lion of any of us. Heck, you summoned your bayard from across a room!” Hunk touches the tips of his index fingers together, still nervous under Keith’s glare. “You guys are just better at this quintessence-connecting thing than anybody else. You’re closer to it. Maybe,” he hedges, trailing off in a mutter.

Shiro hums, neither confirming nor denying Hunk’s assertion. He has never said word one about his experience as a disembodied spirit in Keith’s hearing. Logic is on Hunk’s side, though. If Shiro can dream about a magical realm and Keith can meditate himself into one, and no one else can, then likely their time inside the Black Lion _is_ what differentiates them from the others. And if they have each been able to do that on their own…

Keith catches Shiro’s eye; Shiro presses his lips together, nods once.

Keith says, “Maybe we can do it again?”

Pidge yells, “You better!” Keith jerks his head away from where her words now ring in his left ear. “And you’re taking us with you!”

“How?” Hunk asks.

“Just like with the lions, obviously,” Pidge says, matter-of-factly. “If we concentrate hard enough around them, we should be able to match the same energy and end up wherever they both went.”

“And how do we know that whatever is tearing Lance up won’t come for us?”

Shiro speaks at the same time as Keith. “We don’t.” Shiro’s smirk causes Keith’s face to heat up again. Old habits, etcetera.

“We have to try!” Pidge pleads.

“Of course, we will,” Shiro promises her, reaching out his left hand. He tugs her into a hug. Keith works overtime to quash an irrational but not unexpected flare of jealousy as he strokes her hair. “We’re going to figure this thing out, Katie,” he whispers loud enough for them all to hear.

Keith is on the verge of adding his voice to that rousing chorus when he feels the prickle of static that can only mean the space wolf is returning. He is attuned to Kosmo by years of practice, and his head turns, unerringly, towards the nurses’ station where he knows the wolf will materialize.

Kosmo does. Two men stand with him. One is a short, squat, yellow-skinned man with green Altean markings who must be the doctor Pidge has told them about. The other—tall, pale, with outrageous orange hair and a ridiculously outsized moustache to match—could only be Coran. Both of them are not exactly dressed for travel, which means Kosmo took his remit a bit too seriously and neither of the men understood what sort of expediency is possible when one is a twenty-foot-long cosmic wolf with teleportation powers. Paugh is in a towel and nothing else. Coran has on a very official-looking uniform and very unofficial fuzzy slippers that are shaped like weblums.

“Oh! Hello!” Coran pipes, waving. “I didn’t realize we’d, uh, get here quite so soon.”

Paugh, the doctor, adjusts his towel with a smile. “It was _quite_ the journey.”

Keith spies soap still in his hair. If he is upset about this, his radiant smile at Kosmo gives no hint of it. He’s a scientist who studies quintessence; he will likely have more questions about the journey than Keith has answers. That is, he grumbles to himself, getting to be all too common these days. Shiro rises, goes to clasp Coran around the forearm in greeting before pulling him, too, into a hug. Keith expends considerable effort to keep yet another surge of envy entirely internal. Shiro’s face remains grim.

“I wish it could be under other circumstances,” he says. “Pidge can catch you up on the latest, but you might want to see him.”

“Oh yes!” Paugh answers for both of them before Coran can. Keith had caught some of that in the past few days working in Pidge’s lab; if anyone can give Coran a run for his money on the wild enthusiasm front, it is apparently this pudgy Altean scientist.

“It might shock you,” Keith warns them, but Paugh pays him no heed, trundling after Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge, the latter of whom is the most animated.

Coran, on the other hand, hesitates by Keith’s side. Keith isn’t sure what to make of his expression.

“You okay?”

“Hmm?” Coran mumbles. “Oh, yes. Sorry, traveling by space wolf is a bit disorientating.”

He still pats Kosmo on his scruffy head, not holding any grudge. He is also lying and badly enough that Keith can sniff it out. He folds his arms over his chest, tips his chin down—his most menacing and insistent expression, honed after many years of being just stubborn enough to wear almost anybody down. Anyone other than Shiro, of course.

“What’s the matter, Coran?”

“Eh? Oh, right,” Coran says. “Well, I got Pidge’s comm. I was afraid—I was afraid we might be too late.”

“It’s not too late yet.”

“Thank the Ancients for that,” Coran sighs.

Outside of one too many nunvill drinking contests, Keith’s sure he hasn’t said as much as ten words together to Coran in as many phoebs. He has no right, nor any much experience with prying. He makes the attempt anyway.

“I didn’t know you and Lance were close.”

“Some of that is just from familiarity, I suppose,” Coran muses, his voice trembling. “Lance has always shown more affection for Altea—New Altea, I suppose—than any of the rest of you. He was always keen to learn more and talk more about it. He’s quite popular there and he was usually around if he could be.”

A tight, crushing sorrow pierces through Keith’s chest. This is a side of Lance they all were peripherally aware of, to some degree, but not an interest he or the others shared with Lance. It’s a point of intimacy for only Coran and Lance, and Keith is struck anew at how differently people relate to one another. The only reason he can appreciate the beauty in this variety right now is because it is perilously close to being lost.

Coran sniffles, rubs at and twitches his bushy moustache. “I hate to admit it, but it’s less about Lance than—well, than—”

Keith knows what he is trying and failing to say. “About Allura.”

Besides Coran himself, Lance is the last, most intimate connection to Allura. Whenever one of them goes—and Keith is determined that _that will not be soon_ —she will be lost to other all over again.

Coran bursts into exuberant tears and throws his arms around Keith’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, number four!”

Keith, awkwardly, thumps Coran’s back with a flat hand as he sobs. “Don’t be sorry. There’s hope yet. We just figured something out, actually—”

A high-pitched scream comes from the direction of Lance’s room.

“The Mark of the Chosen!”

Coran lurches away from Keith, straight-arming him and sending him backwards several steps. The words mean nothing to Keith, but Coran is electrified. His hair stands on end, even his moustache, and he bolts away from Keith and towards where the others disappeared. No other alarms sound. No one else starts running. Importantly, none of the incredibly displeased ICU nurses—already staring down the large cosmic canid occupying the majority of their hallway—jumps to investigate, so whatever it is, it’s not an emergency.

“The Mark of the Chosen?” He asks the wolf.

Kosmo’s answer is to sink down and lay his head on his paws and fall into an exhausted sleep. He’s earned it. Keith jogs after Coran, seeking his answer elsewhere.

Everyone—Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, Coran, and Paugh—are standing over Lance. Well, Shiro and Hunk are standing; Coran, Pidge, and Paugh are chattering in vocabulary he would need a doctorate to decipher and at speeds even Keith can’t match. Shiro is gawping, open-mouthed, at Lance. His Altean markings are glowing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Keith and Shiro’s connection to the lions has always been something more profound than the others. I don’t mean to denigrate the connections they have, but it’s obvious that those two are operating on another level. Shiro not only spent more time interacting with magical spaces generally, but I believe the popular theory that, in the fight in which he died, he actually was able to channel his own quintessence to the point where his body wasted away (mass, after all, is only energy in a different hat). Huh. Sounds familiar.
> 
> 2) I don’t think enough was made of the guerilla warfare nature of Keith’s work with the Blade of Marmora. That boy has got to have PTSD for a number of reasons, but that’s a side that is under-explored. I wanted to include more of it, but there was never any time. Keith is also, as I’ve written in other chapters, not overly great at self-reflection. I wanted to have some confession about what he heard from Lance, but there wasn’t space for it in this chapter. Maybe in a sequel.
> 
> 3) Pidge bounces all over this chapter. I maintain that, when all is said and done, she falls into a coma herself. Too much caffeine.
> 
> 4) Coran is hard to write because he’s such a goofy character, but there was no way this thing was going to the conclusion (coming soon!) without him. That was yet another mistake Season 8 made that I won’t be repeating. I don’t think he and Lance would ever be close, and I haven’t structured this story to see much of their interaction, but they definitely have a connection that I can’t ignore, even if it makes me sad.
> 
> 5) Paugh is going to be fun. I picture him kind of like what Pidge will be when she gets older—kinda cuckoo, but still very smart. More chaotic neutral than chaotic/lawful good like Pidge. I almost decided to use Slav for this character, but Slav may come in later. Again, notes for a sequel.


	11. the falcon cannot hear the falconer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith had said he was brave for being scared and acting anyway. Hunk gets to prove how brave he is.

Now that he is wearing scrubs, the Altean doctor looks only slightly less ridiculous than he had in a towel. His voice is lilting and high-pitched, and he wiggles his fingers a lot. It gives Hunk something to focus on other than the crash team working, again, on Lance. Two cardiac arrests in less than six vargas is a bad sign. They have him back, at least as far as restarting his heart, but the Paladins, Coran, and Paugh were all banished from the room while the doctors and nurses went back and forth over protocols to keep him alive.

None of this phases Paugh any more than showing up in the hospital all but naked after using a space wolf for a taxi. He is still flipping his arms about as though he might take off flying if he tries hard enough.

“The Mark of the Chosen! I never thought—in all my years!”

Hunk is gratified to see that he’s not the only one struggling to follow when Keith asks, “What, exactly, is the Mark of the Chosen?”

Paugh happily supplies the answer, accompanied by a few more flourishes of his hands and arms. “Why, it is the blessing of Oriande!”

Slowly, through Hunk’s stress-befuddled brain, a memory stirs. When Lotor had first told them of Oriande, the otherworldly dimension where worthy Alteans might learn the secrets of alchemy, his words had been backed up by the glowing of Allura’s—and his own—facial markings. Oriande’s ability to assess worthiness was clearly suspect, seeing as it had elevated Lotor to that lofty title. Apparently, the fabled city wasn’t too clear on what constituted _Altean_ either, if Lance had the glowing marks, too.

Keith appears no more enlightened after Paugh’s exclamation, which makes sense. He had been with the Blade of Marmora when Lotor had persuaded the Paladins to go to Oriande—so Hunk summarizes what he himself has only just recalled.

“It means he’s an alchemist?” Keith says, hesitating over the words as if they were distasteful.

“Not quite, not quite, not quite,” Paugh leaps to correct him before Hunk can do so with more finesse and less finger wagging. “It is only a sign that one can _become_ an alchemist!” He interrupts his own explanation to titter to himself. “Unlikely, though. A non-Altean alchemist? Ridiculous!”

“Hey,” Hunk sputters, exhaustion straining his diplomatic instinct to the breaking point. “It could happen.”

Paugh frowns, nostrils flaring as though insulted. “Would _you_ want to be plugged into a teludav? No, of course not, you’re not _built_ for it. Likewise, if your friend has tried to meddle with alchemy, I shouldn’t wonder that he is dying.”

With unerring instinct, Shiro steps bodily in front of Keith and has his left hand at Pidge’s collar just in time to prevent either one of them from launching themselves at the otherwise oblivious Altean. Their rage, Hunk understands, is from the insult upon injury heaped on Lance. It might be more, if the unease in his own gut is any indication. They weren’t exactly flush with explanations for Lance’s condition, but they had thought they had ruled out self-harm as a cause. Paugh’s explanation means they have re-visit this idea. Maybe Lance hadn’t intentionally harmed himself, but he could have meddled, maybe inadvertently, with forces beyond his reckoning. That…actually sounded a lot like Lance.

The others are similarly distressed. Keith’s words are sharp and bitter, his expression acidic. “Are you saying Lance did this to himself by trying to, what? Perform alchemy?”

Paugh begins to nod, but Hunk must voice dissent with this theory. “I thought Oriande was destroyed by Honerva?”

“And now Altea exists where no Altea did prior to the Princess’ sacrifice,” Paugh shoots back, making a vaguely superstitious gesture and dropping his tone to something reverent when he says Allura’s title.

The invocation--tracing a line over the forehead, dipping slightly at the center of one’s brow-- Hunk recognizes it. Many Alteans had been performing it in front of the Princess’ statue on the last Allura Day. It’s one he’s seen elsewhere, also in conjunction with Allura’s name, when he’s traveled to other Coalition planets. She hasn’t been gone five decaphoebs, and they’re already worshipping her as if she were a goddess and not a real person. He doesn’t care for it. The New Alteans fall prey to such mysticism too easily. Were it not for that, Honerva wouldn’t have put them in the position of needing Allura to sacrifice herself in the first place.

“So anything is possible,” Shiro is saying. His one eyebrow is raised, less familiar, perhaps, than Hunk is about the gesture but noting it all the same. “Including the impossible.”

Arms crossed over her chest, still kept at bay by Shiro’s hand, Pidge sulks. “This doesn’t give us any more to go on than we had before!”

“On the contrary,” Paugh chides. “We now know for certain that alchemy is responsible for your friend’s condition.”

Pidge chokes, turning purple with apoplexy. “I said I thought it was magic!”

“Magic,” Paugh says, holding his fingers together such that the tips of his thumbs and forefingers meet, forming a large circle. Then he overlaps them, shrinking the circle. “Alchemy. There are plenty of avenues of magic possible. This is _Altean_ magic.”

“So what?” Pidge protests, still non-plussed. “It doesn’t change anything. We still know what we have to do. We have our plan.”

Hunk swallows thickly against panic. Right. The plan they had only semi-formed before Kosmo dropped the universe’s second-most annoying researcher (Slav still held the title) in their laps. The plan to somehow wish themselves into a nightmare realm alongside Keith and Shiro and do…something to help Lance.

Coran’s moustache twitched. “But if Number Three’s condition was caused by exposure to or meddling with alchemical forces, you could all be vulnerable to its effects as well.” His brows peak together with worry.

Paugh, bluntly, says, “You might all die.”

“So we might die,” Keith hisses from behind Shiro’s shoulder. “Not like we haven’t risked that before.”

“Keith,” Shiro warns, but Hunk hears no serious rebuke. He regards Pidge and Hunk for a long moment before adding, “Maybe we don’t all have to go.”

Hunk is good at trusting his gut. His head and his sense of self-protection want to take this eminently reasonable out. If whoever dives into the quintessence realm—or whatever it is—is at risk for ending up like Lance, it makes sense not to send all of them in at once. He is in no hurry to die or become slowly debilitated to the point that there is no difference between that and death. Nor does he look forward to confronting the horrors in that place if they are as Keith described.

His gut, though, is telling him he has to.

“I don’t think it will work if any of us stay behind,” he whispers.

Paugh is in the midst of extolling the superiority of Altean physiognomy and physiology when he speaks, and he glares as though Hunk has interrupted a professional lecturer at work. The others, though, are all staring at him, intent and focused.

“I think we all have to go,” he repeats. He presses his fist against his sternum, summoning courage over the fluttering of nerves. “Haven’t we figured that out by now? We’re stronger when we’re together.”

To hell with alchemy: they had beaten Honerva even after she had siphoned all of Oriande’s power dry. They can do it again. He nods at each of the other Paladins. Shiro smiles back. Keith’s eyes sparkle with the promise of danger and adventure. Pidge looks even more manic, which is not something he would have heretofore thought possible.

Hunk turns back to Coran. “Yeah, maybe we don’t all make it back. But we have to stick together. And we can’t let Lance go without trying to do everything we can to save him.”

His stomach swoops as he pinches his eyes closed against unshed tears. Something other than courage fills him, something infinitely less noble. He eventually identifies it: shame. Here he is talking about keeping the team together in the face of Altean alchemical adversity after they had stood by while Allura sacrificed herself.

No. Not sacrificed. They _let_ Allura go. She told them she could, she _must_ handle it by herself and they _let_ her.

Never again.

Choking on the dueling sensations of loss and determination, he states, “We can’t lose any more of us.”

The others look like they could cheer. Coran wipes a tear as his lip wobbles. “Oh, well said, Hunk.”

Just then, several of the doctors emerge from Lance’s room. Their visages are grim.

Shiro grimaces. Of all of them, he is probably most familiar with interpreting the signs from the behavior of doctors. “We don’t have much time.”

Pidge nods, pulls herself out of Shiro’s unrelenting hand. “Then we don’t have time to waste.” She hugs herself, and adds, in a low voice, “No time for goodbyes either.”

Hunk holds his breath. His days of life-and-death missions are supposed to be behind him, and he has no emergency backup or last will and testament in case of catastrophic failure. If they fail, if he disappears on this mission, who tells his family he loves them? Who can explain why he had to do this? Who tells Shay why, not a quintant after confessing he loved her, he up and left her for the hope—only the _hope_ of hope—to help his friend?

“They’ll understand,” Shiro consoles them both, his left hand on Pidge’s shoulder, his right having traveled to squeeze Hunk’s in the same gesture.

Keith purses his lips, and Hunk watches him burn a hole in the back of Shiro’s neck with his intense expression of contemplation. But he says nothing.

In contrast to their somber resolve, Paugh is the picture of elation. “Excellent! I look forward to observing your attempt!” Paugh claps and rubs his hands together. “Best of luck not dying!”

Meditation worked once, so they decide to try it again. None of them want to be far from Lance; they all of them confess to a sense—a gut feeling, for Hunk—that proximity to Lance is the key. If they have a chance to reclaim the ground he’s lost, they need to be close. Keith summons Kosmo to guard the door as, against all medical advice, they insert themselves back into Lance’s room. Paugh guards the door on the inside as the Paladins and Coran seat themselves in a semi-circle around Lance’s hospital bed.

Paugh’s open staring, with awe and interest, unsettles Hunk a bit, not helping him to relax. He isn’t even sure where to begin. Whenever they had connected with the Lions, with Voltron—and through them, each other—there was a direction to their thoughts. The Yellow Lion came to Hunk in memories of arid winds and sweat. Without that vector, his thoughts fly in circles, and worry threatens to strengthen its hold and climb past his resolution.

“Focus on your breathing,” Keith intones. His eyes are closed as he, intentionally or no, syncs his breathing to the ventilator. Shiro matches his to Keith’s in a tic, the overachiever.

Hunk, across Lance’s hospital bed from them and sandwiched between a still-jittery Pidge and an equally twitchy Coran, sighs. He takes both of their hands and starts to tap the rhythm of the machine against their palms with a finger. He loses track of whether this helps them calm down because he is so focused on matching the ins and outs of the timing. It might not be quite what Keith intended.

But it works. He doesn’t even remember closing his eyes before opening them somewhere…else.

The astral plane, quintessence field, or whatever, is not quite like the connection to the Lions that Hunk recalls. For one thing, it’s not in space. Or, rather, Space. Connecting to the Yellow Lion was like merging with the boundless but tangible, tantalizing infinite, a feeling of unity with the cosmos. This place is like being trapped in a soundless room; all he senses is a lacking, a conspicuous absence where something ought to be. Hunk peers cautiously around, ready to squeeze his eyelids shut at the first hint of gore. No signs of it yet, but he finds himself pressing his fingers against his lips to keep from puking anyway.

Because everyone is made up of pulsing waves of themselves. He actually throws up in his mouth a bit when he risks looking down at himself and sees that he is no different. It’s worse than Keith described it. His body changes shape, clothing, and color in psychedelic and sinusoidal transitions. In perfect contrast to his nausea is Pidge, twirling about in delight in order to watch every part of her as it shifts. She’s Pidge Gunderson the cadet, Pidge the Green Paladin, Pidge as seen on the _Voltron_ TV show, and then back again.

At least Shiro and Keith appear as pole-axed by this development as Hunk, but not, he thinks, for the same reasons. Of all of them, Shiro vaults between the greatest changes to his overall shape. His white-gray hair dissolves into black undercut and white fringe he had when they rescued him from the Garrison. His Black Paladin armor makes an appearance, as does his Galran arm, then no arm at all, then the Altean prosthetic. Somewhere in the transition from his Garrison flight suit—from the battle with Sendak—to black-barred Garrison uniform he wore on the bridge of the Atlas, Hunk spies a flash of purple in his eyes. Hunk gulps, reminds himself that this is Shiro, and no matter if some bit of the clone might be along for the ride.

(After all, technically, _Shiro_ is the one along for the ride.)

Keith ought to be used to it, or at least not surprised, but he gapes openly at Shiro, now sporting the stump where Keith had amputated his Galran arm and a generic Garrison officer’s uniform on top, his Paladin armor on his legs. Hunk almost asks Keith if he saw the light in Shiro’s eye, too, when he follows Keith’s gaze to Shiro’s left hand. There’s no ring there, no matter how many times the image changes.

“Well, this is odd!” Coran chirps, slapping Hunk on the back.

*****

At least none of the other Paladins are any more clued in than Hunk as to how Coran has joined them somewhere he has never been—has never been able _to_ be in.

“It doesn’t even make sense that Coran is here!” Pidge yells, pacing in her white TV-show boots and Paladin helmet. The effect has not grown any less nauseating, but at least no fields of body parts have materialized in the meantime. So Hunk holds down the bile that seems to exist around where he cannot look at his own stomach.

Shiro and Keith exchange a loaded glance that dances over their shifting features, but both shrug and say nothing to contradict her. Coran, for his part, seems delighted to watch his hair lengthen, his face sprout acne, his uniform change back and forth between formal apparel and a slouchy rearrangement of the same. At one point, he becomes _an actual baby_ and says, in full adult voice, “Crikey!”

“Could we have pulled him in by accident?” Hunk suggests, offering his index fingers for baby Coran to use to haul himself back up to his feet. “Because he was so close?”

Pidge shakes her head then apparently reconsiders, shrugging, “We’ve never been able to do that before. It’s possible.” She laughs. “It’s magic. Anything is possible!”

She cocks her thumb and forefinger and aims it at Coran. “Better question: why can Coran appear younger and none of us can?” Hunk opens his mouth to disagree—he has on his cadet uniform on one half of his body, an apron covering his other half—but she cuts him off. “I mean, _really_ young.”

Pointing to him, Shiro, and Keith in turn, she clicks her tongue. “None of you look any younger than I first remember seeing you.”

“I don’t think this is about you, Pidge,” Shiro admonishes, gently.

She shakes her head. “I didn’t mean that.”

It takes another second for her point to sink home with Hunk. He nods to her, then says, “Shiro, how old does Pidge look to you? At her youngest, I mean?”

Shiro makes a show of considering. “Fifteen, maybe?”

“Does she look like Katie or like Pidge?”

As Shiro stares at her, Keith startles. He knows.

“You look older,” he murmurs, staring at Shiro.

Shiro smirks. “Thanks?”

“No, no,” Hunk says. “He means you don’t look like you did when you were younger.”

Shiro rolls his eyes. “I got it the first time, Hunk.” He folds his Altean arm across the chest of his Black Paladin uniform. “I look old now. I get it.”

He really doesn’t. Shiro is a vision of many of his selves, as are they all. But none of them look any younger than they did before that night Shiro crashed back on Earth after escaping the Galra. Hunk flounders, trying to think of a better example as Coran appears to ice-skate on slippery feet past a gobsmacked Keith.

Keith.

“Keith!” He shouts, pointing. “Shiro, look at Keith. You met him when he was, what, like fourteen? Does he look like he did when he was a kid?”

Finally comprehending, Shiro’s eyebrows leap up on his forehead. He scrutinizes Keith up and down, as if seeing him for the first time. Shiro met Keith when he was a teenager, and if anyone wins the prize for pubertal glow-up, it’s Keith. The difference is more striking than it is for Pidge, who, largely, moved through puberty untouched. Softly, he stutters, “N-no, he doesn’t.”

Keith, flushed slightly, returns the favor. “You don’t look like you did before Kerberos.” He gnaws his lower lip, ogles Shiro’s left hand. “Or like you do now.”

None of them do, Hunk realizes with a jerk of surprise. Pidge nods at him; she noticed it, too.

“We’re all some form of ourselves, but only at specific time points in our lives. Well—except for Coran.”

Coran, now a toddler unsteady on his feet, marvels, “Alchemy!”

Pidge, non-committal, says, “Maybe. We’re all affected by whatever this field is, but only Coran is changing age substantially. And he isn’t in his slippers.”

None of them are in the clothes they wore to the hospital, and, while Hunk can’t speak for the others, he is certain none of the wardrobe that flashes over his body is something he still has in his closet. It might support the less-than-reassuring theory that whatever is doing this is fixated on them as Paladins.

“It doesn’t matter,” Keith says. “We’re here to find…”

He hesitates and Hunk’s stomach sinks before his mind fills in the name: they’re here to find Lance.

As Keith had described, the mere thought of Lance changes the space around them, blinding white light flashing. Much to Hunk’s relief, no corpses snap into view. Instead, he sees what looks like a smattering of sand. Only a handful of grains, scattered and unaffected by his feet treading over them. They seem to grow denser off towards some invisible horizon. In the other direction, the sand disperses, as if blown onto asphalt from the beach; the grains spread apart and vanish into the depthless white void. It doesn’t quite dispel the sense of emptiness to the place, but it does give it direction.

“Groovy,” Coran, now a pimple-faced teenager in his mall-pirate costume. “I haven’t seen water this pink since sunset on Arus!”

“What water?” Pidge asks. She is staring along the same vector as Coran. “I don’t see it. I just see a bunch of circuitry.”

“Consider yourselves lucky,” Keith mutters. He is standing as compactly as his shifting form allows, head bowed as if avoiding cobwebs.

“We’re all seeing something different,” Pidge murmurs. She looks away from where there almost appear to be small dunes in Hunk’s eyes, towards the darkness. She points. “Quick: what does everyone see there?”

“Nothing,” they all answer together. On that, at least, they are simpatico.

Pidge’s arm swivels one-hundred, eighty degrees, away from the nothing. “And there?”

“A stream!” Coran cries.

“Blood,” Shiro answers, lowly.

“You know what I see,” Keith says, folding his arms across his chest and not elaborating.

“Sand,” Hunk says, shuddering. The sand around him, now that he looks closer, isn’t only under his feet, but swirling around him. Or no, not swirling so much as hanging, suspended tendrils reaching out into nothing from something.

“It’s getting bigger, or more, right?” Pidge asks. All agree. “It looks denser to me, like all the wiring or energy that I’m seeing is concentrated in that direction.”

That’s where they’ll find him, they know, from Keith’s description of his previous visit. Hunk’s current visions are as comfortably free of violence as they come. He’s not excited about changing his circumstances, but that’s why they’re here. He surprises even himself when he takes the first charging steps in the direction of the deeper drifts of sand.

They walk in silence, not even the exertion of breath to fill the emptiness. Exactly as before, according to Keith, the illusion seems to go on all around Hunk but never catch him up in it. He moves through areas where sand should be, but none brushes his cheek or scratches along his Paladin gauntlets when they appear. If Hunk reaches out to the granules suspended around him, he can touch them, rub his fingers over their gritty texture, but not dislodge them.

The sand clouds condense into a haboob over the dunes, a frozen storm dense with dust and sand that he can nevertheless see through. Keith and Shiro walk in single file, Shiro ahead, both fastidiously avoiding whatever horrible visions they see. Coran dips fingers into the sand, flicks them as though expecting them to be wet.

“The water on Pollux is usually so greasy,” Coran titters, tossing a luxurious orange curl that dangles over his forehead. “This looks just like it, but it isn’t.”

All of a sudden, it clicks for Hunk. He’s seen this before, sort of. He might be more alert this time, but he’s been through this sort of distortion of reality before.

“We’re being mind-swished!”

Everyone regards him with polite, if skeptical, curiosity.

“It’s an illusion,” Hunk continues.

Pidge hums at that, but she says nothing. Shiro frowns. Only Keith makes a critical assessment.

“I thought you said when the mermaids swished you, you saw the same illusion as Lance. Why are we all seeing something different?”

Hunk holds up his palms at the level of his shoulders, less certain on this point even as he is sure it does not change what he knows to be true. “It probably has to do with our experiences. Something our brain is telling us is there because we can’t make sense of whatever it is, maybe?”

Keith snorts. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

Pidge rescues him. “It’s magic,” she says, definitive and derisive, completing the surety of her words while gesturing as though to push her glasses up her nose despite currently wearing her Paladin helmet. “We think this is some kind of alchemy, and Paugh says non-Alteans can’t do that kind of magic. So our brains are filling in with something we do know. Simple.”

“Coran is Altean,” Hunk says, not challenging so much as testing the edges of her hypothesis.

“Not one of the Chosen, though,” Pidge replies, her tone so neutral as to sound bored. When they had been at Oriande, Coran’s markings hadn’t glowed like Allura’s. She shrugs. “Or he could be seeing whatever it is the most clearly of all of us. No way to know.”

“I agree with Number Five,” Coran, now mostly an adult version of himself, says.

“With which part?” Shiro asks, huffing—perhaps offended by what _his_ brain is understanding in this place.

“Both? Neither? Doesn’t seem to matter,” Coran says, good-naturedly.

“It matters,” Keith growls. “You guys might be seeing rainbows, but this is connected to Lance, remember. It’s part of him.”

This thought is more sobering, as is the sight ahead of Hunk. The storm of sand resolves into the most unlikely, least natural of structures: an hourglass. The flurries and sand dunes seem to originate from the lower bulb, which is shattered. More sand trickles down from the neck, depleting an already diminished supply in the upper bulb.

Barely above what sand remains in the upper bulb is Lance’s face. Or half of it. He’s sunk into the grains up to his nose, only his head above his fluorescing cheekbones is visible. His eyes are closed. Hunk swallows thickly as he watches his friend’s nose start to crumble like the edge of a sandcastle meeting a wave. There are other cracks, too, new fissure lines waiting to fall apart. There is no body below the sand surrounding his face because it has already flown away, scattered to invisible, static winds. Keith is right; what Hunk sees may be less gruesome, but he is still standing in the storm made up of his rapidly disintegrating friend.

Pidge darts towards Lance, then stops, redirects, and goes to shake Coran, who has gone slack-jawed. “What do you see? Coran! Coran!”

Coran stares ahead of himself, speaking as though hypnotized. “It’s the Fountain of Lorsa.”

“What is that?” Keith asks, now standing at Shiro’s side. Shiro, for his part, appears no less astounded than Coran, but in the complete opposite direction. Coran gapes as though he is witnessing the appearance of a god; Shiro has the glassy stare of a man viewing Hell.

Hunk helps Pidge wake Coran from his own stupor, leaves Keith to offer reassurance and commiseration to Shiro.

When Coran turns to the Paladins, there are tears at the corner of his eyes. “Lorsa is—was a goddess of Old Altea, before even my great-great-great-pop-pop’s time. I’ve only ever seen pictures of her famous fountain in Halifaq. It was fed from mountain glaciers, and the water came out as tears that fell onto her hands.” His expression goes vague again as he muses, “The fountain isn’t on New Altea.”

Hunk sucks in a breath. Unsure if he wants an answer, he probes, “Do you see Lance?”

Coran gulps, nodding. “He’s lying in her hands. What’s left of him.” Coran startles, physically jolting a foot upward, then gawping backwards in the direction they came. “The water!”

Hunk isn’t sure he will like the next answer any better. He stares at Lance’s closed eyes, at his long eyelashes touching the sand that is rapidly pulling away from his skin, and he asks anyway. “How much is left?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Coran replies, wilting at the corner of Hunk’s vision. “The basin--it’s almost empty.”

Pidge walks around what Hunk perceives as the hourglass, Coran as a long-lost fountain, and Keith and Shiro imagine is a corpse. The stomach-churning disconnect between her ever-revolving appearance and the more mystical, but steady, illusion is too much for Hunk. He has to avert his eyes. Here, at the center of what is left of Lance, he looks back along the path they came. There are no footsteps in the sand that appears to cover what passes for the “floor” to this realm. It is as though Hunk were no more substantial than Lance.

That provokes a hysterical notion that he, too, is dissolving, and Hunk, disoriented, reaches out, steadies himself on what should be ephemeral particles in space. The tongues of sand support his whole weight, which does not exactly calm down his roiling gut or diminish his rising panic.

“Well,” Pidge declares, clapping her hands and breaking Hunk out of his spiraling dread. “Then it’s simple. We have to put the water back in. Or whatever.”

Keith coughs, caught by surprise. “It’s not going to be that easy. I tried.”

Pidge wags her index finger back and forth. “Your efforts were based on faulty information. You assumed that the illusion was doing damage to Lance. But if it’s just parts of him, we only need to push those parts back where they belong.”

Hunk shakes his head. “I agree with Keith. It won’t work.”

He demonstrates his point when Pidge glares at him. He cannot be certain what she sees when he does it, but he pushes against the sand, adding deliberate force to that of his weight. It does not budge. When he kicks at the sand piled at the base of the hourglass, his foot slides straight through it. He might look a madman, but the general gist is the same: bone, water, energy, or sand, the lost material obeys no whim or will of theirs. Too slow, and the applied force meets absolute resistance. Too fast, and the illusion slips through the fingers (or toes, in this case).

Pidge frowns, adjusts her glasses, and recalculates. “That’s not the only part of him we have access to.”

To his absolute horror, she darts in to touch Lance’s face. A cry freezes in his throat, a warning not able to get out before she makes contact. Pidge’s fingers brush against where Hunk perceives Lance’s ear.

She seizes instantly. For what seems an eternity, her small body convulses and her face contorts, rigid with pain. He is moving before he knows it. He hears the others protest, warning him or her against their respective courses of action, he isn’t sure. But no way is Hunk going to let her suffer. He pinches his eyes shut as his hand closes around the fine bones of Pidge’s wrist, bracing for a universe of hurt.

It never comes.

Hunk is holding her, and they are okay. Pidge’s mouth, twisted into a rictus snarl of torment, softens as his grip tightens.

“Oh, wow,” she squeaks, panting as adrenaline surges through her. “New data. Thanks, Hunk,” she beams at him. “I’ll be okay now.”

“You don’t know that! You couldn’t have known that!” Hunk shrieks. He adjusts his hand to encircle her forearm without breaking contact.

“Neither did you,” she says, grinning and squeezing his arm right back, “and you reached for me anyway.”

Hunk looks away, feeling his cheeks warm and pins prick at his eyes. Shiro and Keith regard him with awed, but fond and sly grins. Coran has his hands clasped tight; his tears flow unabashed. Now he is definitely blushing under the unspoken adulation. He straightens himself to his full height, covering it with bravado.

“Together,” Hunk says, and he holds out his other hand.

The others don’t hesitate.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hunk proves to be challenging still, but I maintain he’s the heart of the team. He’s the one to keep the family together. I struggled to find a way to let that be known without solving too much of the mystery. Hence the long period between updates.
> 
> 2) How the Paladins see Lance was always varying in my drafts for this scene. I decided not to compromise and picked every way. Cheating: the writer’s art.
> 
> 3) Pidge remains impulsive and brash. I love her.
> 
>  
> 
> Next up: Pidge is the solver of mysteries. Problems do have solutions.


End file.
